ROCK DAMAGES HOUSES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27072, 22 June 1953, Page 8

ROCK DAMAGES HOUSES

FALL FROM STEEP HILLSIDE ROOMS AND FURNITURE CRUSHED (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 21. Two Eastbourne families had an unnerving experience in the early hours of yesterday morning and in addition suffered about £l5OO worth of damage to their properties when several tons of rock slipped from a steep hillside and plunged through the roof of a block of flats and an adjacent cottage. The upstairs flats of a two-storeyed building in Muritai road, occupied by Mr F. Presi, of the Netherlands Legation, and his family, was badly damaged. The rock penetrated the flat roof into ’an unoccupied back room and on to a grand piano, which became a mass of splintered wood and broken wire. The piano was an old family treasure which had been brought out from Holland.

The inside wall was bulged about a‘foot by the impact. A second fall of rock crashed through the kitchen and bathroom of the next door cottage, occupied by Dr. and Mrs M. J. Murray. They were able to save their refrigerator and electric range, but the rest of of the kitchen and all the bathroom fittings were wrecked.