A camera, lowered into the approximately nine-meter-deep sinkhole in the town of Marguerite in Pennsylvania, showed something that could be a shoe.
It feels almost like the sinkhole opened up right where she was standing, says Steve Limani, spokesperson for the police in Pennsylvania.
The 64-year-old woman's family alerted the police at 1 am on Tuesday when she didn't return home. She had gone out the previous evening to look for her cat Pepper.
The police found the woman's car parked at a nearby restaurant, and in it, her five-year-old grandchild. At the same time, the massive sinkhole, which had formed near an abandoned mine, was discovered.
The girl, who had dozed off in the car, stayed there until she was picked up by the police.
Just hours before the woman disappeared, restaurant workers and hunters had moved around in the area but hadn't seen the sinkhole, which leads rescue workers to believe it's new.
We're pretty convinced we're in the right place. We hope there's a crevice where she might be, says John Bacha, head of the rescue service.
According to the police, sinkholes are not uncommon in the area, which is due to ground subsidence caused by previous nearby mining activities.
