Drivers on Canning Highway are warned to exercise caution after a sinkhole opened in a left lane on Tuesday morning.
The hole forced the closure of the left-hand lane of Canning Highway westbound, near the Esplanade in Mount Pleasant, at around 8.30am.
The sinkhole on Canning Highway is 50cm deep.
Photo: Community News / TwitterMain Roads advised there may be possible delays while crew conduct emergency repairs.
The sinkhole is around 30cm wide and one-metre deep, and is believed to have developed from an existing pot hole in the road.
Edith Cowan University associate professor Sanjay Kumar Shukla said excessive rain was a known cause of sinkholes, and the Mount Pleasant area has recorded a daily average of 10.2 millimetres since the beginning of August.
"The sinkhole that has developed on Canning Highway this afternoon is likely a result of Perth's recent wet weather," he said.
Professor Shukla said it appeared that the surface water from recent rains had seeped into the ground beneath the localised low-lying bituminous road surface.
This is believed to have caused the road base materials to migrate under the influence of seepage forces towards some form of weakly compacted zones - which is understood to have led to the sinkhole.
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