EDGE OF A CUFF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21360, 13 June 1931, Page 15

EDGE OF A CUFF

FAMILIES IN PERIL WAKENED BY A ROAR. Hundreds of people climbed to Seaview : crescehl on, the top of the cliffs at Walton. - 6n-Naze, Essex, recently, to. watch two „ families remove the furniture from their :s homes, which had become poised in mid---air when a fall of earth carried away part 1 of the foundations. The fall occurred early in the morn- ; ing, -while the families were asleep. • The . loud noise caused by the crumbling :of t thousands of tons of earth woke Mrs - Rose and her son,' who live in one of the - houses. They ran downstairs and found * that the foundations of part of the build- > ing had gone. When they stood in their : drawing room they, were suspended halfway pver the cliff edge. ■» They wakened the other family next door, Mr and Mrs Ball and their daughter, , and all had to leave. Nineteen years ago, when they were built, the houses were 30 yeeds from the edge of the cliff, but great masses of it I gradually slipped away until they were v left on the very edge. ' Recently further ominous cracks appeared in the cliff face. •