Sinkhole continues to grow after consuming front wall and driveway

A sinkhole that opened up in the driveway of a West Midlands home on Sunday is now 10 ft wide and growing.

After consuming garden slabs, parts of the front wall and a portion of the driveway, the 12 ft deep chasm is now threatening to swallow a car.

The owner of the house has evacuated on the advice of the council, but it is still unclear what caused the hole to suddenly open up in an apparently ordinary street.

Neighbour Glenys Murphy said coal mines below the surface have left the area "like a honeycomb".

She said sinkholes had regularly opened up in around the Wednesbury area, and that another had swallowed a tree in the same street a few decades before.

Ms Murphy said she was not concerned for the safety of her own home, as it had been built on a coal dump.

Disused mines, salt deposits and the collapse of caves are common causes of minor sinkholes in the UK, according to the British Geological Survey.

In Februrary 2014 experts blamed "wet weather" when three sinkholes opened up in the UK in unrelated incidents in less than two weeks.

One teenager was left "absolutely gutted" when her Volkswagen Lupo disappeared into a gaping cavity in the earth's surface, while residents of Hemel Hempstead reported feeling the ground shake as a 30-ft hole appeared below a house.

Professor Amir Allani, professor of civil engineering at Greenwich University, said underground flooding may have "created the erosion" that "in time, has facilitated the layers above the weak strata to collapse."

The West Midlands hole that appeared this week has become an attraction for other residents, who reportedly have been travelling by car to photograph the expanding crevice.

The Coal Authority has been informed of the hole's existence and is reportedly investigating.

Meanwhile, the void may continue to grow.

"It's going to take some filling," Ms Murphy said.