My Toyota was swallowed by a sink hole

Elena parked outside the Turist Hotel in Barnaul but soon heard her the alarm from her Toyota IST.

'When I looked down, I saw my car sinking into the ground, the rear wheels were already in the hole,' she explained. 

'While I ran down the stairway, it went down deeper...'

She called the emergency services who arrived at the scene. It took 15 people to lift the car out of the one metre deep crater.

The incident was in the same city where a few days ago dentists staged a protest about potholes.

They even crashed plaster casts of their patients jaws to fill the holes. 

But on this occasion, it was a problem linked to under-road heating pipes which supply hot  water for residents. 

The head of 'Barnaul Heating Systems', Alexander Gross said tests were underway on the pipes. 

'On this very spot there was obviously damage of the heating system pipes, water washed away the ground under the asphalt, and sadly the car fell through the asphalt,' he said.

'The owner of the car can claim the compensation for damages and we will pay everything.'