Council gets to work on Dover Heights 10-meter sinkhole caused by Sydney drenching

Sam McKeith
AAP
Council workers are fixing a 10-metre sinkhole on an east Sydney street caused by heavy rain. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS)
Council workers are fixing a 10-metre sinkhole on an east Sydney street caused by heavy rain. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS) Credit: AAP

A council in Sydney’s exclusive eastern suburbs has fast-tracked remediation works after torrential rains caused a 10-metre sinkhole to open up on a suburban street.

Waverley Council said slated stabilisation works at the Dover Heights intersection had been brought forward after the sinkhole emerged on Saturday following rain, which has fallen in the city for 13 straight days.

The works would start at the site on Monday morning, a council spokeswoman said.

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Sydney and much of coastal NSW have been drenched every day since the start of May, but the Bureau of Meteorology said it expected the run of wet weather to come to an end on Tuesday.

If Tuesday’s sunny forecast eventuated, the state capital would fall short of a record run of 16 consecutive days of rain, a bureau spokeswoman said.

“We are expecting today to possibly get enough on the rain gauges to continue the trend of rain but it looks like tomorrow will be predominantly sunny,” she said.

The NSW State Emergency Service said it had received 138 calls for assistance statewide in the past 24 hours, including 34 call-outs in Sydney.

Many calls were for leaking roofs and downed trees, the agency said on Monday morning.

Several flood warnings remained in place, including for the Warrego River near Bourke in the state’s far west.

Sydney’s Warragamba Dam spilled over on the weekend after it reached capacity, following sustained falls in the catchment area.

Premier Chris Minns has said the state government will look at lowering the dam’s maximum storage level to help prevent downstream flooding during spill events, but only once the city’s water supply has been supplemented.

People near the Hawkesbury River in the North Richmond area, on the city’s northwestern outskirts, were asked to monitor conditions after the river peaked at 3.36m in the morning.

That level was below the minor flood level of 3.8m.

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