A mother and daughter casually driving along the streets of Flores da Cunha in Brazil were swallowed up by a giant sinkhole which suddenly opened up in the road before them.

Vanessa Cavagnolli, 34, suffered a broken nose and her daughter Andressa Carnesela, 12, sustained minor, non-life threatening injuries in the dramatic incident in the Rio Grande do Sul region on Tuesday.

CCTV footage from the street shows the road disintegrating after a heavy construction truck carrying clay drove over it.

The driver immediately behind the truck averted danger in time but Cavagnolli unwittingly sped right into the abyss. Thankfully, Cavagnolli was largely unharmed, and could be seen getting out of her vehicle in shock at what had just unfolded.

“We were going and fell. It just fell out of nowhere. Then we opened the car doors and we tried to get out,” Carnesela said to Brazilian news outlet G1. “A man came and got on the hood to help us.”

A passerby helped her and her daughter out of the hole so they could be taken to hospital for treatment.

The sinkhole opened right above a water and sewage system intersection; the incident left residents in the area without water as the pipes burst when the car sped into the hole.

Repairs on the hole began Wednesday and it later emerged that the road was 50 years old.

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