Heavy rain blamed for mine collapses

Last week's heavy rain has been blamed for causing subsidence into a number of old mineworkings in Newcastle.

The Mine Subsidence Board is investigating at least eight incidents around the region where the ground has collapsed into old mineworkings in some cases causing a huge crater.

The largest is at Charlotte Street, Wallsend, where a section of the road collapsed into a hole four metres deep.

A board spokesman says the road runs across the old cooperative mine dating back to the early part of the last century.

Another collapse in Hill Street North in Lambton has left a crater around two metres deep.

The board says heavy saturating rain sometimes causes the rock strata to crumble into old mineworkings particularly in areas where mining was carried out within 12 metres of the surface

_{Bron: ABC}