10 The Collapsing Road

The young couple was very lucky. The back tires of their car stayed on the road. Otherwise, the car—and its passengers—would have fallen right into a pit twenty feet wide and thirty feet deep!

The man and woman were coming home from a party. They were enjoying the landscape around Swansea, Wales. Suddenly, they found the front of their car leaning into a huge hole. The car barely hung on to the edge of the pit. It swayed back and forth, like the arm of a balance.

In their precarious position, the couple knew that each movement they made could be a matter of life and death. Slowly, slowly, they edged toward the backseat. Then each opened a back door. And on the count of three, they jumped out together. The accident was so scary that they ran a long way before they calmed down. But later they returned to see what happened. They found that a big chunk of the road had sunk into the ground. At the bottom of the pit lay their car—roof down and wheels up.

Was this mystery of the sunken road ever solved? It turned out that an abandoned mine shaft lay under the road. It had collapsed and taken the pavement with it. Layers of tunnels beneath it had collapsed so many years ago that no one knows where they end or begin. The tunnels are shaky, like those that ants build in the sand. It’s even possible that the entire city might collapse.

这对年轻夫妇非常幸运。他们汽车的后轮胎留在了路面上。否则，汽车以及车上的乘客就会直接掉进一个宽二十英尺、深三十英尺的坑里！

这对男女刚从一个派对上回家。他们正欣赏着威尔士斯旺西周边的风景。突然，他们发现自己汽车的前部向一个大坑倾斜。汽车勉强挂在坑的边缘，像天平的臂一样前后摇晃。

在这种岌岌可危的处境中，这对夫妇知道他们的每一个动作都可能关乎生死。他们慢慢地、慢慢地向后座挪去。然后两人各自打开后门，数到三，一起跳了出去。这次事故太可怕了，他们跑了很长一段路才平静下来。但后来他们回去看发生了什么。他们发现一大块路面沉到了地下。在坑底，他们的汽车车顶朝下、车轮朝上地躺着。

这条塌陷道路的谜团有没有解开呢？结果发现，道路下面有一个废弃的矿井竖井。它坍塌了，连带路面也一起塌陷。它下面的多层隧道在很多年前就坍塌了，以至于没人知道这些隧道的尽头在哪里或者是从哪里开始的。这些隧道摇摇晃晃的，就像蚂蚁在沙子里筑的那些隧道一样。甚至有可能整个城市都会坍塌。