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London Ontario Sink Hole - October 31, 2007
Just before 5 a.m. on October 31, 2007, a water main broke underground in the middle of downtown London, Ontario at the intersection of Wellington and Dundas. As water gushed 5 metres up into the air the pavement slowly eroded over several hours eventually causing a giant sinkhole 9 m wide and 4 m deep; large enough for a city bus to hide in.
The quickly escaping water eventually flooded the entire basement of a nearby mall including the underground parking. The flooding affected several major electrical systems and left downtown businesses over several blocks without power including City Hall, the Galleria Mall, both TD Bank Buildings and CIBC for quite some time.
Business Impact
Although this is a small disaster it could have been much worse. Thousands of workers were told to remain home while workers tried to eradicate the problem. The event caused disruptions to a regional telecommunications company with about 50,000 customers and remained disruptive for some time afterwards. Although not verified there was likely an amount of business lost due to unhappy clients. Additionally data and hardware could have been lost due to the sudden loss of electrical power. The areas transportation was disrupted for months which made it difficult for customers to access surrounding businesses that resulted in lost revenues.
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