Clear again after slip closes highway

State Highway 5 was blocked because of a slip on Wednesday night. Photo / Ben Fraser

A main arterial route was closed to traffic after heavy rain led to a land slip.

State Highway 5 was closed for about an hour-and-a-half on Wednesday night after a slip blocked the road between Dansey Rd and Tarukenga Rd, near Mamaku. Police set up diversions while the slip was cleared.

Rotorua District Council highway manager Kevin Thompson said it was lucky the slip happened when traffic volumes were low and no one was struck by the debris.

"We got off reasonably lightly," Mr Thompson said.

"But we've got our eyes on a couple of fronts that are coming as we have waterlogged ground. There are areas of the network where we know we have issues when there's wet weather."

He said the slip happened around 8.30pm and covered both lanes. A crew from Downer was on site within 30 minutes to start clearing the road. Debris was pushed to the sides and then cleared yesterday.

Lee Thompson and her husband Aart Jansen managed to squeeze past the slip as they returned home to Rotorua from a trip to Auckland.

"We saw a huge slip that took out both lanes," she said.

"A guy came up to us and said if we were really careful we could get past on the grass and we managed to do that. It was pretty freaky. Our car is quite low and there wasn't a lot of room. We only just managed it."

Ngongotaha Volunteer Fire Brigade Station Officer Paul Osborne said two crews and the Rotorua operational support vehicle attended.

"It had the potential to have been a lot worse if someone had been driving past at the time," he said. "If it had been around home time it would have been a different story."