Barcelona metro sinkhole evacuees face week-long wait to return home

Residents evacuated after a sinkhole opened near Barcelona's L9 metro works will not be able to return to their homes until at least next Friday, the Catalan government's director general of mobility infrastructure, Ramon Ramírez, said on Friday.

Ramírez said that while monitoring checks showed that ground movement was decreasing and the situation was developing positively, authorities had decided to inspect the condition of the ground beneath each affected building, following recommendations from experts.

The additional checks will extend the evacuation period, which had initially been expected to end on Saturday. 

Teams began moving into the area on Thursday to start carrying out the inspections. Ramírez said the situation would be reassessed next Friday.

The sinkhole appeared on Tuesday, and since then, authorities have carried out an "exhaustive" monitoring operation of ground movements.

"The evolution is very positive, the movements are reducing within the expected margins," Ramírez said, adding that they were "very calm."

After the sinkhole opened, residents of 93 apartments in the Putxet neighbourhood were evacuated on Tuesday.

The crater, measuring around eight metres across, opened in an interior courtyard near the site of a future L9 station in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district.

Authorities established a 24-metre safety perimeter around the collapse, eventually evacuating eight residential buildings.

The cavity has been filled with concrete.

Albert Vetayol, a member of the Georisk Observatory at Catalonia's College of Geologists, has attributed the sinkhole that opened in the Putxet neighborhood to overexcavation.