A woman in the US has been rescued after driving into a sinkhole in the Texas city of El Paso.

Witnesses said the woman appeared to mistake cones at a major intersection for a lane on Tuesday (local time), and drove straight into the sinkhole.

It came only minutes after authorities said a faulty water main burst. It rapidly flooded the street and caused the footpath and road to rupture, creating a massive hole.

It quickly grew to three metres wide and more than two metres deep.

Local media reported the woman’s sedan was almost totally submerged within a few minutes – and sucked fully underwater only moments after she was plucked to safety.

“The fire department just got here in time,” one bystander said.

“Thirty seconds more and she would have been dead.”

Firefighters and members of the public weighed down the rear of the white sedan as it sank into the water. Others helped the woman escape through the rear windscreen.

According to the El Paso Fire Department, she was taken to hospital with only minor injuries.

Video footage of the aftermath published on Thursday showed the vehicle being removed from the ruined El Paso intersection.

CBS News reported three firefighters were treated for minor injuries after breaking the car’s rear window. The woman was in a stable condition.

The car remained in the sinkhole, buried metres deep in mud.

“We don’t know how big the sinkhole is, but we know it’s enough for an entire car to fit in,” El Paso Fire Department spokesperson Enrique Duenas-Aguilar told CBS.

-with agencies