Call it the sinkhole tumble heard around the Web.

A teenage girl in north China was walking down the sidewalk while talking on her cellphone when she fell -- suddenly and without warning -- into a sinkhole 20 feet deep.

The fall was captured by security cameras stationed near the sinkhole, and video of the girl falling through the sidewalk has been making its way around the Internet.

Academic studies have shown that pedestrians are less aware of their environment and more prone to engaging in unsafe behaviors when they are talking on a cellphone. According to various media outlets, there may have been caution blocks on the street that the girl failed to see, although in this video we see no orange cones or yellow security tape blocking off the area around the sinkhole, which opened up under her feet.


The good news: The girl was OK, even if she was shaken up.

Wang Wei, a taxi driver who saw the girl fall, jumped out of his cab to climb into the pit to help the girl.

He told the Telegraph that when he first called out to the girl she didn’t respond, but after he shook her a bit she came to.

He also said she was shaking and couldn’t stop crying.

We’re glad the girl is physically OK, but we can imagine her ego has taken a bruising.


As Cathy Cruz Marrero, the woman who became famous for falling into a mall fountain while texting, said, the worst part of the fall was her embarrassment. “The humiliation,” she said. “You don’t know how many people are laughing at you.”

[Updated at 12:23 p.m. April 24: A previous version of this post failed to mention that there may have been caution blocks on the street that the girl failed to see.]

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