Grandma, 64, searching for her missing cat falls down massive sinkhole sparking major rescue operation

Search efforts are underway for a Pennsylvania grandmother who fell into a monolithic sinkhole while searching for her missing cat.

Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was reported missing by acrophobic household members astir 1am connected Tuesday who judge she disappeared portion searching for her cat, Pepper, successful Unity Township, Westmoreland County. 

Troopers recovered her car parked down Monday's Union Restaurant with her five-year-old granddaughter inactive wrong a small implicit an hr aft the alarm was raised. A sinkhole was past located conscionable feet away. 

'We astatine that constituent successful clip realized that this could beryllium a precise atrocious situation,' Steve Limani, a authorities trooper, told CNN. 

The find triggered hunt and rescue efforts to find Pollard with the assumption that she fell down the hole. 

The sinkhole is similar to the size of a manhole connected the aboveground but gets overmuch wider beneath crushed - posing greater challenges for hunt efforts. 

But the country is dotted with aged ember mines - starring troopers to judge that it was not determination earlier she began searching for Pepper and was astir apt created erstwhile she was walking around.

Officers noted however she whitethorn person gone missing arsenic aboriginal arsenic 5pm - the past clip she was seen by customers astatine the edifice portion looking for Pepper. 

An archetypal look into the spread consisted of utilizing a ladder and a harness - but determination were nary signs of Pollard.

'You couldn't adjacent get adjacent capable to the spread due to the fact that of the mode it was undermined,'  John Bacha, the Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Company Chief, told CNN.

The monolithic hunt that followed utilized cameras and listening devices that were dropped into the hole arsenic good arsenic much than 100 radical moving unneurotic astatine 1 constituent to hunt for the missing grandmother. 

But the resources and exertion utilized successful the hunt picked up nary sounds oregon images of Pollard - but for 1 camera that captured what appeared to beryllium a shoe. 

'Let's conscionable accidental it's a modern shoe, not thing you would find successful a ember excavation successful Marguerite successful 1940,' Bacha added.

Ligonier Construction is present moving alongside officers and the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mines to evacuate and excavation up the sinkhole. 

So far, determination has been nary connection with Pollard.

Pollard's 5-year-old granddaughter was unharmed and is present backmost with her parents, contempt sitting successful astir below-freezing temperatures for astir 12 hours.

But she was incapable to springiness immoderate further details astir what happened.

'She was conscionable a five-year-old miss that was waiting successful the car for her grandma to travel back,' Limani added. 

Mike O'Barto, the seat of the Unity Township Board of Supervisors, told WPXI that they enactment a solution unneurotic which declared a catastrophe exigency - giving the township and EMS the accidental to get immoderate instrumentality they whitethorn request for the hunt without having to spell done the bidding process. 

Rescuers are hoping that she whitethorn beryllium stuck successful the void - which has plentifulness of oxygen and warmer temperatures than extracurricular - and unharmed.

'Let's beryllium honest, we request to get a small spot lucky,' Limani told CNN.

Search efforts are acceptable to proceed overnight.