COLLAPSE OF A HILLSIDE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 16

COLLAPSE OF A HILLSIDE

FIFTY YARDS OF ROAD, OBLITERATED RESULT OF RAINSTORM AT WELLINGTON (TBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON. June 22. A whole hillside broke away in to-day’s southerly rainstorm and completely obliterated 50 yards of Lower Newlands road, leading up from the Ngahauranga Gorge road, creating a blockage of tens of thousands of tons of rock, rubble and soil. The slip occurred this morning, starting with a tremendous roar which reverberated through the valley, along the top of which a cliffside road runs to serve residents in the north-eastern part of Newlands. They will still be able to get access to the main road via Upper Newlands road. it is at least 15 feet up from the road and spreads across it and for a considerable distance down the valley face. Viewed from above, it presents a surface of country shaken by an earthquake. In parts the slip as it covers the road has the appearance almost of a flat pasture, the hillside above having slid down in sections on to the road beneath without disturbing the surface of the grassy pasture. The whole road is in a bad condition, as the ordinary indentures of the normal lines of traffic had been scoured by rain waters until they resembled two lines of water moving down to the lower reaches on both sides.

Narrow watercourses, that would in normal times carry a slight flow, gushed down on to the flat below and sent an accumulation of claycoloured waters swirling along the road, practically effacing all traces of the road and giving it the effect of a fast-moving stream. The rush of waters from Newlands' Valley reached a peak under the railway bridge, swirling down the main road to the H*utt road junction and carrying with them gravel and soil sufficient to block normal outlets, choke drains, and create an expanse of water completely covering the Gorge road down from the bridge to the far side of Hutt road. From there the’ waters spread north and south, isolating for some time a butcher’s shop near the corner of the two Main Highways and covering the railway line inside the meatworks entrance for about 40 yards.

There was at least six inches of water over an area of 100 yards by 20 yards, where the Main Gorge road and the Hutt road meet.