Ground under sinkhole becoming unstable as rescuers search for Pennsylvania grandmother

Heavy machinery and sound-monitoring equipment are being used in the search for a Pennsylvania grandmother who is believed to have fallen through a sinkhole deep into fragile, unstable ground while searching Monday for her cat, authorities said.

Heavy machinery and sound-monitoring equipment are being used in the search for a Pennsylvania grandmother believed to have fallen through a sinkhole deep into fragile, unstable ground while searching Monday for her cat, authorities said. Amid danger of a collapse, rescuers have been pumping water through a long-abandoned mine at the site to clear out debris, then remove it with a vacuum, to make it easier to see what is underground, Pennsylvania State Police said early Wednesday. “The integrity of that mine is starting to become compromised,” Trooper Steve Limani said in a news conference. Rescuers hope Elizabeth Pollard, 64, is still alive in an air pocket, officials have said, noting the hole has plenty of oxygen and is about 55 degrees, far warmer than above ground. And though shifting ground is slowing the search, state police will not stop until they have answers, they’ve said. “There’s been nothing that said she is not alive or she could not possibly have survived. There’s nothing that said 100% definitively it couldn’t have happened,” Limani said. “And until that 100% happens, how could I say it’s any other way?” Police got a phone call around 1 a.m. Tuesday from a relative of Pollard who said the grandmother, with her 5-year-old granddaughter, had left in a car to look for her cat the prior afternoon and had not been heard from since, State Police said Tuesday.