A NEWCASTLE CREEP

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2772, 16 May 1916, Page 6

A NEWCASTLE CREEP

EFFECT OF SUBTERRANEAN FALL.

A.t about noon on Tuesday last the residents of Dent Street, Merewether (Newcastle), and adjacent parts of that suburb, were alarmed by rumbling noises, which, resembled heavy explosions, immediately after a number of houses began to sway, and cracks opened up in the ricinity.

Shortly afterwards, ten cottages—nine of weatherboard and one of brick—were dragged as if it were off the foundations, and (hopped '•o depths varying from 2ft. to 3ft. The brick building was the most severely damaged, all tho walls being cracked, and the brick chimneys of all the houses opened in several parts. Strange to say that, although the houses had such a considerable drop, no material damage was done to the contents of anv of them.

The collapse of the earth was responsible for a severance of ■ the water and gas rosins, and it is believed that the sewov main has also been affected.

Dent Street runs east and west, and the subsidence affected an area of roughly four chains by three, extending from the southern side of the street to a distance of about 170 feet in a northerly direction. %e effect of the subsidence was most noticeable on the northern side of the affected area, that side having dropped about 3ft.

The municipal authorities have railed off the street, and the water and gas services were cut off soon after the mains were severed.

The residents, although at first alarmeo" by the swaying, and subsequent drop of their properties, took things calmiv, iii.d it has not been found necessary for any of them to leave their homes. The sub. sidence was apparently brought about by a fall in the abandoned workings of some colliery, but it has not yet been possible, to locate the origin of it