WALL COLLAPSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26542, 18 August 1947, Page 4

WALL COLLAPSES

TONS OF DEBRIS ON STREET A brief talk with an acquaintance possibly saved the life of a woman who was walking in York place on Saturday morning when a concrete retaining wall near the intersection with Tennyson street collapsed shortly after 10 o’clock. She was going to a motor garage near the scene of the collapse and but for her stop would probably have been on the footpath under the wall at the moment of the occurrence. The wall, which had been sagging for some time, crashed down with a loud rumbling noise, swamping the footpath with many tons of masonry and spoil. A telegraph pole was snapped off like a match stick, causing a temporary disruption of the power and telephone services and the automatic fire alarm system. A considerable amount of the garden of the property in front of which the wall was situated slipped away, adding to the scene of chaos and possibly endangering the house itself. A comparatively narrow strip of ground now separates the dwelling from the bank, and heavy rain might well increase the danger. The occupants of the house, however, were still in residence last night. A small crowd gathered after the wall had fallen and it was apparent that the happening occasioned little surprise. Residents have for some time been watching the sagging of the wall with no little apprehension, and several expressed relief that the inevitable had happened with no loss of human life. Rumours to the effect that a child had ben trapped under the fall proved groundless.