MUD FLOODS HOUSE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20131, 28 December 1939, Page 10

MUD FLOODS HOUSE

CLAY FROM HILLSIDE ISLAND BAY SLIP DOOR BURST IN (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this clay. One of the most unpleasant accidents that could happen to any household was experienced by Mr. and Mrs. J. O'Hagan, of .162 Derwent street, Island Bay, yesterday, a large slip at the back door flooding their kitchen with semi-liquid clay and covering most of the rest of the house right through to the front door with clayey water. The house, which is of one floor with a high basement below .the front, is on a hillside westward of the tram terminus, and it was a bank a few feet behind the house and directly opposite the back door that collapsed. Pieces apparently began to fall early in the morning, the occupants of the house then hearing noises, and the greatest bulk fell about 6 o’clock. Porridge-clay and vegetation filled the back yard. The spoil heaped itself against, the wall of the house and burst in the back door, flooded the neat little kitchen, and poured filthy water into the front part of the dwelling. No structural damage was done to the house, a 12-year-old building, but the drainage was disrupted. By nightfall the clay had been shovelled from the kitchen and the water drained from the other rooms by the expedient of chopping holes in the floors, but about- 100 cubic yards of mullock remains to be removed from an awkward position behind and alongside the building. Mr. O’Hagan is the owner of the house.