A family in Cork have had to go into emergency accommodation - after a giant sinkhole opened up in their driveway and cracks formed in the walls of their house due to a burst water-main.
Gary O' Donovan said that he and his family were "totally shocked" when they discovered that a large part of their driveway had collapsed on Sunday morning.
Irish Water officers and emergency services quickly reached the home in McGrath Park in Blackrock.
They have been working at the scene since and say that no other homes in the area have been affected, Corkbeo reports.
Gary said: "Something woke me up at around 6.30 in the morning and I went outside to find that a giant hole had opened in my driveway and my car was sitting into it,"
The sinkhole formed after Gary contacted Irish Water on Saturday evening to tell them that he'd noticed "spring water" coming up between the end of his drive and the road, and 5 millimetre hairline cracks in the walls of the house.
By the time an engineer arrived the water had settled and Irish Water told the family they didn't believe "anything major" to be wrong but that they would be back on Monday.
Gary and his wife left their home with their children who are 10, 7 and 5 years old and their two dogs early this morning, he said they "couldn't close the door behind us as the frame had been warped."
Irish Water put the family up in a hotel on Sunday night - but Gary says that long-term he has no idea what the family are going to do.
"We don't know what's going to happen, hopefully insurance can cover it or Irish Water can sort it out, because we don't think our house is going to be habitable after this," he said.
Gary said that this has been a "horrific ordeal for us as a family," and that they will have a tense wait to find out the extent of the damage to their home.
