LARGE HOUSE SINKS.

Shannon News, 2 August 1927, Page 3

LARGE HOUSE SINKS.

HAS TO BE EVACUATED. AUCKLAND, July 28. Beaming all the external appearances of having survived a severe earthquake, a.*, ten-roomed two-storeyed wooden dwelling, valued at 4000, in Sentinel Road, Ponsonbv, has been evacuated by its occupants in view of a land subsidence, which threatens to break the structure in half. About a week ago the owner, Mr J. Billington, noticed a crack which had appeared across the end of Sentinel ,Road, overlooking the harbour at a point where the street was recently built up by the City Council and steps constructed down to the sea front of the retaining wall. Although it was apparent that the filling was subsiding, no serious menace to Mr Billington’s -house was contemplated until to-day, when the crack across the street, above the embankment suddenly widened out to about eight inches. It spread in a semi-cir-cle beneath the house, virtually allowing the front half of the dwelling to drop several inches. The plaster within cracked open at a point:-. Doors and window frames were forced into almost a diamond shape, leaving inches to clear between the doors and the windows themselves and their fittings. The asphalt paths on the sea frontage of the property “waved” as if by earthquake action, and the concrete basing broke apart.