Sinkhole near downtown Macon diverts traffic

A sinkhole discovered Thursday night beneath the northbound lanes of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the south side of downtown Macon prompted authorities to halt traffic in both directions.

A man at a barber shop nearby noticed a small hole in the road about 8 p.m. and alerted Bibb County sheriff’s officials.

A block-and-a-half stretch of the four-lane road was closed between Hazel and Hawthorne streets.

The street-level pavement hadn’t collapsed, but a saucer-sized opening at the surface revealed a chasm beneath the street roughly 8 feet deep and 10 feet wide, said sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Sean DeFoe.

As of 9 p.m. it wasn’t known how long traffic on the thoroughfare would be detoured to Second Street.

Because MLK is a state highway, the Georgia Department of Transportation was being called in to assess the sinkhole.

This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 9:48 PM with the headline "Sinkhole near downtown Macon diverts traffic ."