T-L Photo/DYLAN McKENZIE A large sinkhole gapes open in front of Jaycee Manor Apartments in Martins Ferry. The hole, attributed to heavy rain, began to open around 3:30 p.m. Friday.

MARTINS FERRY — A large sinkhole opened up in Martins Ferry on Friday afternoon, startling local residents as the ground simply gave way.

Mayor Robert Krajnyak was on the scene to help evaluate the damage and determine what could be done to repair the problem. Krajnyak said that according to residents of Jaycee Manor Apartments, the ground began to open up around 3:30 p.m. Friday afternoon with the hole quickly growing as the ground simply caved in. The result was a large sinkhole that gaped open near a corner of one of the apartment buildings. Water from broken utility lines beneath the ground could be heard running into the sinkhole, which officials estimated was nearly 30 feet deep.

“We had slightly over an inch of rain in almost half an hour,” Krajnyak said. “All the way down to the bottom part of the wall washed away, and just sucked everything down with it.”

Krajnyak said he did not have any initial estimates on what it would take to repair he sinkhole, but he promised that engineers would soon take a look at the pit and would hopefully have an estimate on repair cost, as well as an initial plan on what to do to sure up the space, by the end of the day Monday. He thanked residents of Jaycee Manor and Martins Ferry for being patient as city leaders work to resolve the problem.

“We’re just going to do everything we can to get the problem taken care of as quickly as possible,” Krajnyak said.

The heavy rain that appears to have caused the problem occurred as the remnants of Tropical Depression Cindy passed through the region. The Associated Press reported that the same system merged with a cold front and also caused scattered street flooding across central and southern Indiana. The severe weather moved into the Appalachian region from the northwest and knocked down trees and caused scattered power outages in Tennessee and West Virginia. Appalachian Power reported 1,800 without electricity in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle and another 800 in Charleston.

Cindy formed as a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico earlier in the week, made landfall Thursday on the Texas-Louisiana line and was downgraded as it took aim at the nation’s interior and moved inland. A boy killed by debris in storm surf off Alabama was the only fatality reported so far in the storm, which spun off tornadoes and caused street flooding in many coastal areas.