Residents of 66 homes barred from slip area

Press, 4 December 1981, Page 1

Residents of 66 homes barred from slip area

PA Auckland Residents of 66 Grey Lynn flats and homes were last evening barred from returning as two Herringson Avenue houses sat precariously on the edge of yesterday’s landslide.

The police evacuation order was kept in force for the night because of fears that the two houses would tumble down the hillside on to other properties. The residents were staying with relatives, friends, or in hostels — unsure when they would be able to return to their homes either side of one Herringson Avenue address which collapsed yesterday. The third shift of more than 100 police working on the operation yesterday moved in last evening to guard the unoccupied houses from looting. Other police manned road blocks directing residents whether they could go home for the night or find accommodation elsewhere. The two houses were balanced above the slip — both missing at least a quarter of their foundations. Auckland City Council and emergency service officials will meet early today to decide the fate of the houses. The secretary of the Earthquake and War Damage Commission, Mr John Pritchard, said yesterday that slip victims were not eligible for compensation for their land. Many Herringson Avenue residents were feeling lucky to be alive after the earlymorning disaster which demolished two houses and left more than 20 people homeless. The sound of the hillside beneath their homes cascading into the street below was the only warning they had before one house collapsed and two others were left with their foundations torn away. Tonnes of debris cascaded from the bank, crashing into

a block of four flats in Shirley Road. The bank began to give way about 7 a.m., leaving residents with only minutes to flee their homes. Soon after, emergency services removed about 90 bewildered residents from the area. The scene resembled a ■'direct hit." as if a wartime bomb had destroyed the house in Herringson Avenue. The wooden and brick remains were strewn down the gully. A mountain of earth had tumbled down the slope, taking before it all the trees and shrubbery and crashing it into the open side of the block of flats. The pressure was such that the brick wall on the opposite side buckled under the strain. The first Mr Jeffrey Hill knew of the slip was waking to “a sound like a hail storm" outside his bedroom window at No. 3 Herringson Avenue. “I got up, looked out the window, and saw the back lawn disappearing,” he said. He rushed outside to alert the people in the front flat of the doomed house and then got his wife, and their stereo, and ran out of the house. About 20 minutes later the two-storey house toppled over the edge, disintegrating into a pile of rubble and wood, and taking with it all their possessions. The Hills, who were married a month ago, lost all their wedding gifts and household appliances. Now they are worried about their cat, which was last seen looking over the edge of the slip at where the house used to be. Mrs Hill was feeling “very lucky” after seeing the re-

mains of their home, stacked up like a pile of matchwood, ready for a bonfire. “It is frightening to think that it could have given way during the night when we were still in it." she said. Mr Hill said he had noticed a water leak under the house a few weeks ago and thought this could have had something to do with the slip. Mrs Margaret Skipper and her niece. Miss Rana Cross, who lived in the front flat of the house, were shattered by their loss which left them with only the clothes they were wearing. They had lived in the house for a year, and their belongings were not insured. A resident of one of the flats, in Shirley Road, Mrs Dell King, had just taken her rubbish out to the street when she heard the land giving way. She said it sounded like gravel sliding off the back of a truck. As she turned she saw the land crumbling and the house tumbling down. “I just stood there and looked at it coming towards me.” she said. “We had a garden there," she said pointing to the area now covered with tonnes of dirt, trees, and debris. In another Herringson Avenue house, which was yesterday teetering on the edge of the slip. Mrs Ane Sipeli said she had . nearly fainted when she “had a peep” out of her window and saw the back yard disappearing. She gathered up her four daughters and fled the house. “My husband is due home from Niue next week and now we haven't got a home for anv of us,” she said.