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Sink Hole appears on Shropshire and Union Canal

(16 Posts)
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Allira Mon 22-Dec-25 18:10:05

A major incident has been declared at a Shropshire canal where a giant hole has emerged, with boats left stricken in the cavity or teetering on the edge of the drop.

The incident on a stretch of the Llangollen Canal in Whitchurch has been blamed by engineers on an "embankment failure", with its collapse causing water to rush into a nearby field - and the canal bottom to fall away, leaving a trench.

However onsite engineers, from the Canal and River Trust, have said that earlier descriptions from emergency services of a "sinkhole" were not accurate to describe what had happened.

BBC News 22/12/25

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lvq0yk9dko

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Allira Mon 22-Dec-25 18:10:27

No-one has been injured, thankfully.

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RosieandherMaw Mon 22-Dec-25 20:40:21

It looked as if somebody had just pulled the plug on the canal!

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merlotgran Mon 22-Dec-25 20:46:02
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A little more lively than Narrow Boat Diaries.

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Allira Mon 22-Dec-25 21:00:07

RosieandherMaw

It looked as if somebody had just pulled the plug on the canal!

Yes!

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Oreo Mon 22-Dec-25 21:12:47

It really did look strange, what a thing to happen if the boats were lived on too, I read that some are on that canal and some not used very often.

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Oreo Mon 22-Dec-25 21:13:10

merlotgran 😂

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fancythat Mon 22-Dec-25 22:15:13

I have never known that happen before.

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pably15 Tue 23-Dec-25 09:08:41

I saw that, it was huge, people have been rescued,

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Sago Tue 23-Dec-25 09:45:49

Our daughter lives nearby, apparently the boats were empty.

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Luckygirl3 Tue 23-Dec-25 10:10:10

Where did the water go?!

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Grantanow Tue 23-Dec-25 10:23:57

I wonder how much safety surveying of man-made canal embankments is done.

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petra Tue 23-Dec-25 10:25:11

Sago

Our daughter lives nearby, apparently the boats were empty.

On the news last night 2 live aboards were interviewed.
The water flooded into the fields next to the canal.

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nanna8 Tue 23-Dec-25 11:06:40

It was really spectacular. It even made our news here in Australia ( pretty rare, all we hear about usually from overseas is the US and China)

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Allira Tue 23-Dec-25 11:11:23

petra

Sago

Our daughter lives nearby, apparently the boats were empty.

On the news last night 2 live aboards were interviewed.
The water flooded into the fields next to the canal.

At least ten people were rescued from the boats.

One couple from the USA had retired, bought a canal boat over here and had only been living on it for about two or three months before this happened.

Another man said he woke up, realised his boat was tilting, leapt off and alerted others.

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Allira Tue 23-Dec-25 11:13:32

nanna8

It was really spectacular. It even made our news here in Australia ( pretty rare, all we hear about usually from overseas is the US and China)

I don't think I've heard of anything like this before.
A very hot dry summer followed by an exceptionally wet autumn perhaps?

Or - who pulled the plug?

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