Enormous sinkhole delving deep into earth swallows two cars amid raging storm

A massive clean-up operation is still ongoing after a large sinkhole swallowed two cars and left a mum and daughter trapped.

It came as storms raged in California two weeks ago that led to the deaths of at least 17 people and saw nearly 50,000 residents given evacuation orders.

Towns were flooded and more than 110,000 homes and businesses were without power because of heavy rains, lightning, hail and landslides.

In the Chatsworth neighbourhood of Los Angeles, a mum and her child needed to be helped to safety by firefighters after a road collapsed into a sinkhole.

Now two weeks later efforts are still being made to repair the road which is closed off while phone and internet outages have been announced as cables need to be reconnected.

Two cars fell into the sinkhole in Los Angeles (Getty Images)

Dozens of people are expected to lose connections close to the sinkhole on Iverson Road.

The Los Angeles City Council approved about $500,000 in emergency funding to speed up repairs.

"There is a community just north of the freeway containing a number of homes and a representative of the homeowner group says they have been notified both by Caltrans and by ATNT regarding the outage that is scheduled to begin," said Michael Comeaux spokesman for Caltrans LA (California Department for Transportation).

A mum and daughter needed to be helped to safety by a rescue team (AFP via Getty Images)

"Until Caltran can get full access to the sinkhole we don’t know the extent of the damage."

Footage from January 10 shows the cars fully submerged in the large and growing sinkhole, one on top of the other.

The chasm was nearly the width of a street, with huge chunks of pavement and the cars deep inside, approximately 15 feet below ground level.

The sinkhole emerged during major storms in California (Gene Blevins/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)

The mum and daughter were trapped in the bottom vehicle, and so the firefighters initially attempted to bring ground ladders and lay them down to span the hole and reach the victims, but this was not successful.

Meanwhile, the road continued to slough and although firefighters tried to stabilize the vehicle, it was shifting and starting to roll within the sinkhole.

Crews then used an aerial ladder to position the rescuers over the hole.

A firefighter was lowered down with a rope and reached the woman and the child with a harness before they were both dragged up to safety.