On Jan. 26, a sinkhole formed under the sidewalk running in front of the Mitsukoshi Sakae department store in Naka Ward, Nagoya.
The hole, measuring 3 meters across and 2 meters deep, formed when an aging sewer pipe running beneath the sidewalk caved in and the soil went into the pipe.
The sewer system on that street was built around 1954, when the Oriental Nakamura department store, the predecessor of the Mitsukoshi outlet, opened.