THE CITY LANDSLIDE

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2242, 25 June 1929, Page 5

THE CITY LANDSLIDE

LTD EARTHQUAKE START FALL? (Per Press Association) Wellington, June 24. Tire neighlxuirhood of Harbour View, so near mid-city and yet so far above it. consists of n projection of land from Wellington 'Terrace immediately to the south of the Church street steps. This land slopes fairly steeply down to Bonlcott street at the rear of St. Mary of the Angeles Church, but it ends very abruptly on the Church street flank in an almost perpendicular hank or cliff, 00 or 70 feet in height. • Though the formation is clay and rotten rock, this shoulder of land has been well built upon for forty years past, and but for the steep up-hill pull, V considered a very' desirable locality on accent of its proximity to the’ heart of the city. It is from the front ground of the lowest residence-—a well-built threestory structure of wood;—that a mas?) of about 100 tons of earth, with the stout concrete wall which was supporting it, has fallen away, exposing a. cliff-lace that gives no assuronce that the trouble is over. The spoji that has ohms away, and which, with the concrete wall, crashed down and hkrough the iron-roofed timber stack shed of G. W. Hide and Co., docs, not bear the appearance of being unduly water-logged, and the. supposition is that fall was caused partly through the face having been loosened b ytbe recent earthquakes, combined wjith the effect of last week’s tieavy rain.

FALL?

Wifclf this great bite out of the bank, the house already referred to is only a few yards from the edge, hut extends well, back on to firm ground. A. shed that stood in the foreground now overhangs the cliff. It cannot be entered in the, ordinary way, and will hnvci to he removed. There has also been some slight falling awa.y of earth in the backyards of those Title cottages that rise like steps ioni the konth side of the Church street steps. Here the land is so steepj, that wooden stagings have hind to-be built to. provide backyards for these premised