Around 70 teen girls from the Toras Emachu school in Monsey, New York, were safely accounted for after wandering into a big underground drainage culvert in Nyack, New York.
The incident unfolded on Wednesday afternoon when the students who were visiting Nyack Memorial Park on a school trip entered a giant stormwater tunnel that runs beneath a village. The subterranean trek was authorized, and the situation prompted a swift response from local emergency personnel.
An Orangetown police officer noted several girls unexpectedly emerging from a sewer grate in an alley off Main Street. Most of the group was located and safely removed near Main and Franklin streets.
While initial reports labeled the network a sewer system, Nyack Mayor Joe Rand and local residents clarified that the structure is a stormwater drainage tunnel that collects the village's water runoff and empties into the Hudson River.
All the students exited the system on their own power, and no serious injuries were reported.