ATTACKED BY THE HILL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1190, 27 July 1911, Page 4

ATTACKED BY THE HILL.

4 VACUUM OIL STOKES. A few months ago one of the buildings of the Vacuum Oil Company, on tho Hutt Road, was invaded by a great mass of water and mud, which forced a way through a roof of one of tho stores. The calamity of Monday evening last was of a slightly different nature. Thoustuuls of tons of spoil came mviiy from a hillside on the khodes Estate, overlooking tho buildings. Some tour tnousand tons of rock and earth are stiil lying on the old road, which runs aloug tne nill immediately above the buildings. A mass of tho material, weighing eight or nine hundred tons, continued its glissado until it drove in the end of ono of the sheds. Water, diverted from its natural channel, accompanied the invasion of tho solid matter, and augmented tho damage inflicted.

Tho damaged stores yesterday presented a scene of desolation. Tho wall burst in consists of a massive wooden framework fac.ed with galvanside-iron. A section of this framing, forty feet wide ami m, . twenty high, is leaning far over towards the floor. ■ The floor itself is everywhere soaked with oil and water. While tho rain continued, drains had to be cut out in various parts of the floor to let tho water escape. One of these drains, when the rain attained its greatest volume, was running four iuches deep and scvcral feet wide. Tho manager of tho company (Mr. T. H. Hamilton) stated that over 200 barrels of oil and some two thousand cases of kerosene havo been more or less damaged. The kerosene cases at the bottom of a great tier havo undergone, a thorough soaring, and it is impossible meantime to get at them. An awkward featuro of tho situation is that (hero seems every reason to anticipate further slips and land-slides in the future. There is a fault in the hill, extending upward and along from the point at which the last slip broke away. Two of tho company's stores aro of brick, and nt the ends facing the bill aVo concrete walls ranging from over six fact at the base to two and a half feet I hick at the top. These again are so strengthened with, strong buttress* that, a mass of solid • concrete thirteen feel through is opposed to fho thrust of the hill. The face of the hillside was left untouched when the other buildings were, erected, and the company considered (hat these stores would 1)0 strong enough if constructed of wood and iron.

As the event has turned out, neither kind of building has proved able to resist (he onslaught of the hill. The slip or a few months ngo piled up spoil against one of the concrete walls until it was surmounted. Then mud and water forced, nn easy passage through the roof. A Mjlid slip on this later occasion has cracked tho lighter type of building like an eggshell. As a matter of fa.it, had the building been ten times <is strong it must, still have been smashed by so tremendous nn impact. ■