Utility maintenance and repair crews are expected to take another 48 hours to fix the 10 metre hole that opened up on Sunday morning at the corner of Margaret Street, Broadbeach.

Director of Gold Coast Water Paul Heaton said initial investigations suggested the collapse was caused by a defect in a 70-metre length of pipe, which flooded the ground underneath the road.

“Fifty years old for a water pipe is not too bad... we generally expected 80 to 100 years out of a good water main,” he said.

“It’s pretty much in its midlife, so it may be having a midlife crisis, but we’ll do a full investigation and make a decision where we go to from here.”

The Gold Coast Highway remains restricted to one lane southbound while utilities crews, dealing with power and telecommunications, are on site.

“We’re working with the other utilities and they’re going to do their restoration works first. We hope to get back in the hole later today and do our works on the pipe,” he said.

“At this stage within the next 48 hours we’d hope to have everything repaired and back to normal.”

Mr Heaton said it was likely the pipe would be replaced.

“Sometimes literally we just put a band-aid on the pipe, which is a covering on the outside,” he said.

“In this case because it was a failure in a pipe length, we’ll actually replace that pipe length, which is about six metres long.”

Mr Heaton said there was no evidence the Gold Coast light rail system or increased urban build-up had anything to do with the water main bursting.

“Pipes, like us, always get older and as they get older they get crankier, and eventually crack up,” he said.

“We’re going to have to do some works as we always do in repair and replacement going forward... this is a fact of life for a city.”