Burrow swallows pensioner during search for missing cat

USA - It's a tragic story that happened to a pensioner: while searching for her cat, she was presumably swallowed by a hole in the ground and has been missing ever since.

Elizabeth Pollard (64) disappeared last Monday in the US state of Pennsylvania after going out to look for the animal at around 5 pm.

As People reported, a relative reported her missing on Tuesday night.

Authorities said the retiree's vehicle was found near a large sinkhole. The emergency services therefore assumed that the woman had fallen into the hole.

In her car, which was parked nearby, they also discovered her five-year-old granddaughter, who was unharmed.

The little girl told the emergency services that she had fallen asleep in the car and woke up to find that her grandmother had not returned.

"At this point, we realized that we were dealing with an extremely serious situation," explained a police spokesperson.

Rescue teams and excavators began to remove the earth from around the huge hole shortly afterwards. The authorities suspected that the hole in the ground opened up at the exact moment the 64-year-old walked over it.

A shoe, which presumably belonged to the missing woman, was found about nine meters below the surface.

"We are pretty confident that we are looking in the right place. We hope there is still a cavity where she could be," said a fire department spokesman.

According to initial findings, the sinkhole formed over a former coal mine that was last in operation in 1952.

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said the agency would investigate the site as soon as the collapse area was secured. The aim is to find out whether the accident is due to historical mine subsidence.

Elizabeth Pollard remains missing.