ASHEBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — A major water main break is closing roads, cutting water off to people’s homes and forming a sinkhole.

Crews in Asheboro are hard at work trying to locate and quickly repair the problem. A building partially fell into a 5-foot-deep sinkhole caused by the breaking water main, and the city is bringing in a crane to remove it.

For many people who live in the downtown area of Asheboro, water service was impacted. Service should be restored, but people living on Church Street could still have outages.

City leaders told FOX8 that they were made aware of this at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning.

You can see mud flooding Church Street about a block from City Hall. The water tower emptied in less than 30 minutes — about 500 thousand gallons of water.

Aging infrastructure is likely to blame for this issue.

“The mainline coming out the Church street water tank has broken. It compromised the site. We now have the water isolated and we are working to get the building moved from the water line to make the repairs we need too,” Michael Rhoney, director of Asheboro’s Water resources told us.

Asheboro’s mayor says crews will be working on this issue for as long as it takes to get Church Street back up to par.

Please avoid this area of Asheboro while crews work to fix this issue.