Missing grandmother’s body recovered from Pennsylvania sinkhole

A 64-year-old woman has been found dead four days after she reportedly fell through a sinkhole above an abandoned mine in Pennsylvania, officials say.

Elizabeth Pollard was reported missing by family members after she went out to search for her cat on Monday night.

Investigators later determined she fell into a 30-ft (9m) sinkhole connected to an old abandoned coal mine in the town of Marguerite.

On Wednesday, police officials said they strongly believed the search had become a recovery mission, rather than a rescue.

The discovery of Ms Pollard’s body was confirmed by Westmoreland County Coroner to KDKA-TV, part of CBS, the BBC’s US partner.

On Thursday, search teams said they feared that the mine could collapse as they continued looking for her remains.

“The goal is to remove the dirt and them to come up from underneath and extract that dirt,” Pennsylvania State Trooper Steve Limani said on Thursday.

“We’re going to take that dirt and put it in separate piles,” he added. “We’re going to have people reviewing that dirt, looking through it, possibly if we could fine a cell phone or anything that could be of significance.”

Earlier in the search effort, recovery teams were using electronic devices and cameras which were lowered into the hole, but detected nothing.

Rescuers had also been using water to remove dirt and clay from the mine, which stopped operating in the mid-20th century.

At one point, more than 100 people had been involved in the search.

Sinkhole fatalities are rare in the US, but they do occur.

According to the American Geosciences Institute, Pennsylvania is among the states where sinkholes are most common, along with Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Similar sinkholes had been reported in the area in which Ms Pollard died, largely because of the sinking and shifting of disused underground mines.