Crews Rush to Repair Sinkhole : Subway: By Monday, the 60-foot-deep hole will be filled with a concrete mixture, utilities will be repaired and two lanes should be reopened, officials say.

Construction crews worked feverishly Friday to fill the gaping 70-foot-wide sinkhole that opened above the Metro Red Line project on Hollywood Boulevard, hoping to stabilize the damp ground and reopen the roadway by next week.

Over the weekend, workers will fill the large hole, which is estimated at 60 feet deep, with a concrete mixture. Telephone and gas companies will then be able to finish repairs, and quick road repaving will allow two of the four lanes to be opened by Monday morning, said Charles Stark, project manager of Red Line construction.

Hollywood Boulevard is closed between Vermont and Normandie avenues.

The sinkhole set off a day of finger-pointing Friday, as investigators probed the source of Thursday’s yawning cave-in.

The only point officials apparently do not dispute is that water triggered the sinkhole.

A burst water main weakened the earth between the tunnel and the street. What caused the main to crack, however, is a bone of contention between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Department of Water and Power.

MTA officials suggested that the main simply collapsed, causing the pavement to buckle. But the DWP said its initial examination indicates that shifting earth, caused by a lack of tunnel support, cracked the water line.

According to the MTA, workers inside the tunnel 40 feet below Hollywood Boulevard near Barnsdall Park noticed that the soil was wet, and called the DWP about 3:15 a.m. Thursday.

DWP workers arrived about 3:30 a.m., but apparently did not close off the water main, said Larry Zarian, incoming MTA chairman.

The seepage prompted the construction manager to call the DWP again between 4 and 4:30 a.m., but agency crews did not show up until two hours later, Zarian said. At 6:15 a.m., the water rushed in, driving out 20 Metro Rail workers.

Zarian says the MTA is not blaming the water department. “We just want to know why the water was not shut off, and why it took so long,” he said.

The DWP had a different view of what caused the mess.

A DWP engineer said another agency engineer driving by the site early in the morning found no water on the street.

“When water mains break that close to the surface, you see leakage on the street first,” said DWP spokeswoman Lucia Alvelais.

A safety engineer who is close to the project laid full blame upon the MTA, saying the sinkhole was probably caused because work crews were taking out too much dirt too quickly, a practice called “overmining.”

“If you pull out enough, the earth will run,” the engineer said. “The faster you do it, the faster you can lay the tunnel. Once they overmined, there was no way to stop it. It was history.”

On Friday, Red Line critic state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) joined his colleague Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) in calling for the complete cessation of the multibillion-dollar project.

At a joint news conference Friday, the two state senators urged a federal investigation into the project.