Texas sheriff's deputy killed after driving into sinkhole

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A Texas sheriff's deputy was killed after her car plunged into a 12-foot-deep sinkhole that opened up on a flooded two-lane street during drenching evening rains, San Antonio officials said on Monday.

Dora Linda Nishihara's body was found inside an upturned car in the sinkhole, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. She was a part-time deputy with the agency.

Witnesses said it would have been impossible for her to see the sinkhole created by a ruptured underground sewer pipe during a rainstorm on Sunday night, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told reporters on Monday.

A passerby rescued a 60-year-old man from another car also consumed by the sinkhole, Hood said, adding that both were hospitalized with minor injuries.

It was not clear what caused the sewer line, which was little more than a year old, to burst, said Robert Puente, president of the San Antonio Water System.

The incident occurred during a storm that dumped as much as 7 inches of rain in the San Antonio area in the south-central part of the state.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Letitia Stein and Peter Cooney)

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