Less often seen, though, is the very moment one of the capital’s notorious chasms opens up – which is exactly what a new video captured.

Filmed on the Appia ring road on Thursday afternoon, the clip caught the tarmac as it crumbled into a hole three meters by five wide and six meters deep.
Two parked cars teetered on the edge of the crater but managed to avoid falling, a fate suffered by more than one vehicle before them.

Just ten days ago, two cars had to be hauled out of a massive pothole that opened on another of Rome’s ring roads in the south-west.
The south-eastern area, which surrounds the ancient Appian Way, is thought to be riven with underground cavities, and archeological treasures, such as the 3th-century catacombs discovered by chance during work on a nearby building.

According to an app set up to map road damage, 10,000 potholes have been reported over the past seven years, with 110 appearing in the past month alone.