Engineers demolish home on edge of slip

A worker is lifted out in a digger bucket to retrieve personal items from the house. Picture / Mark Mitchell

A house teetering on the edge of a massive slip in the Lower Hutt suburb of Kelson has been demolished after a three-and-a-half hour operation this morning.

Owners Nigel and Ann Nation watched as contractors tried to save heirlooms and pictures from their home.

A slip on Monday night all but destroyed the house forcing the Nations and three neighbouring homeowners to be evacuated.

Residents of two of the evacuated houses have now returned home.

A digger this morning started taking the Nation's house apart, ripping off walls so furniture the couple wanted saved could be removed and a worker was lifted into the living room to retrieve belongings.

Among the items taken from the house was an antique sideboard and a rug, an heirloom from Mrs Nation's grandmother.

"I think the sideboard was made in 1895 - in that era. And there was a rug that was over 100 years old. Those are the main things," Mr Nation said.

"TVs and videoplayers don't bother us. But that sideboard has been in the family for generations."

Neighbours helped carry the salvaged contents to the garage of the house next-door.

Hutt City Council spokesman Don Carson said last night it had been decided to pull down the house so engineers could fix a ruptured sewage pipe underneath the property.

"We had engineering advice that the house is unstable - there's no question that it will have to be demolished. But one of the prime factors... was that we need to put a sewer pipeline across to where it was originally.

"To make sure the pipeline isn't in danger by a house hovering above it we decided that we should take the house out."

Mr Carson said there was a certain amount of risk in demolishing it, but they were prepared to accept that risk as "the lesser of two evils".

"There's no guarantee that it will work, there's no guarantee that the whole thing will work, but we're going to give it a go," he said.

Mr Carson said the land was "porridge".

"It's old fill from years ago - it's pretty sludgy - and it continues, with the rain we've had today and over the past month, to be pretty loose."

- NZPA