A Wellington resident has broken her foot, and her well-known house on the city’s south coast may now be out of use, after a major landslide brought down boulders and trees following torrential rain last week.
Deborah East says she hadto evacuate the property on The Esplanade due to the risk of falling rocks, and Island Bay residents were taking boxes to the site to help her husband move out.
She said it was a very large slip and it was now unsafe to be there.
“The whole house is under a lot of pressure from the weight of rocks. The pressure from behind has caused a dwang to actually come out of the joist and poke through into the room, and the front door is very stiff to open.”
She said the slip occurred about 4.45pm on Friday. It also hit the gas water heater at the back of the house behind the kitchen and a water pipe, which caused water to dash down the steps and into the kitchen.
When she returned on Saturday early afternoon, a wayward rock fell on her foot and broke it.
The house was a well-known property in Island Bay, with a boat attached on the front and a sea-patterned mural on the garage door. East, a former real estate agent, said the property was 100 years old.
“It was a beautiful house, it was a quirky house, and we loved it. But nobody’s died, that’s the big thing - we and our dogs have got out okay.”
Falling boulders
East’s husband, David Anastasi, was packing up the house. He told RNZ it was not safe to stay in long-term if there was more heavy rain.
“There is risk of further slippage - we are not sure the extent of that risk, but any extra heavy rain could bring more stuff down.”
Several tonnes of rocks came down and some of them were estimated to be longer than 60 centimetres. Photo / Samuel Rillstone, RNZ
He said boulders barrelled down the back of the house, shattering part of their glass conservatory and damaging their deck, kitchen and bathroom.
He estimated several tonnes of rocks came down and some of them were longer than 60 centimetres.
“It’s shattered some glass, it’s encroached into our conservatory - that’s obviously not a safe place to be at the moment.”
The courtyard behind the house was completely full of rock, and the deck had splintered into a V-shape.
“Any further weight and it will give,” Anastasi said.
He said he and his wife were not in the house at the time of the slip, and were told by their lodger what had happened. They had formed a deep attachment to the house,
They were now talking to insurers, but feared it would be too expensive to stabilise the bank behind it.
