“It tripled in size in one day!”

Sidewalk, gates, driveway… in Villerupt (Meurthe-et-Moselle), a gaping hole – of approximately four meters wide by four meters deep – engulfed part of the roadway, during the night of Thursday January 2 to Friday January 3, 2025.

Awakened in their sleep, residents of rue François-Raspail living near the crater were evacuated from their home. Access to the two houses in front of the chasm remains prohibited. One was uninhabited, the occupant of the other was relocated.

The cause of this big hole is still unknownbut hypotheses flourish.

The fault widened in a few hours

Thursday January 2, Veolia, the water delegate, was to intervene at 16 rue François-Raspail regarding a water leak detected two days earlier. But at the first shovelin the afternoon, the sidewalk begins to sag. The workers then stopped the work “because the gas meters were threatening to fall,” explains Pierrick Spizak, mayor of Villerupt.

Gas meters finally fall during the night from Thursday to Friday. “We were woken up by the firefighters, the sidewalk had collapsed even more […] the hole had tripled in size!», remembers Audrey D’Amico, living with her family just opposite the hole, on the other side of the road.

Constraints for local residents

A little further down the street, Louise Neto, a local resident since 1958, says: “The firefighters knocked on my door at 5 a.m., they knocked loudly! I thought I was dreaming. They told us to evacuate . »

“The number one emergency was to properly secure the perimeter,” explains Pierrick Spizak. After the surprise of the evacuation, the objective was to “ensure that GRDF puts the gas back on as quickly as possible, cut into 12 homes and some of which were exclusively heated [par ce biais] ».

The gas was finally restored Saturday afternoon at Audrey D’Amico’s house, depriving his family of hot water and heating for almost a day and a half.

And now ?

From, car traffic was cut offin the street. On Monday, the councilor began the process of presenting a file, “currently being finalized”, to claim recognition of the state of natural disaster.

The Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM) – a representative of which was on site the day after the collapse – will work to define the causes of subsidence. The objective will also be to observe whether the fault extends or not. The question of a possible backfillingand how, will come later.

“We know that it will take several weeksthere are soil analyzes to be done,” explains Mayor Pierrick Spizak, “I totally understand the concerns. If now, between today and the weekend, the hole gets bigger, there we will ask ourselves more questions ».

What is the cause?

What could have caused this sinkhole to erupt in the middle of a residential street – which, luckily, did not cause any injuries?

The elected official mentions an avenue in the conditional: “We are entitled to ask ourselves the question of whether the activity of the career [d’Aumetz] accelerated the process of subsidence. » He remembers a hole that appeared not far away, rue Emile-Zola, in 2020, shortly after the operation began operations. A possible link with the vibrations caused by mine blasts?

The different scenarios

Many local residents also imagine the scenarios that led to the collapse. “Maybe because of all the rain falling on us? », asks Louise Neto – one of the oldest residents – when referring to the subsoil of the town crossed by mining galleries. Could this then be a new subsidence of karst origin?

For a local resident, a member of the opposition, it is necessary to connect the two subsidences mentioned above with a third, which occurred in the 90s, rue Robespierre – a few hundred meters away. “For us, it’s the water network that is completely broken in the neighborhood», he argues, highlighting the low rate of return of the distribution network.

Véronique Guillotin, senator from Meurthe-et-Moselle, who took up the matter, pleads: “Experts must respond. We must put all the hypotheses on the table and there are none to be dismissed.”

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