Heartbreak as landslide reduces new home to pile of rubble

Grant and Robyn Williams’ home was only six months old. Picture / Alan Gibson

Grant and Robyn Williams left town for only a few hours yesterday, but by the time they returned their six-month-old home in Tauranga's Welcome Bay was a pile of rubble.

The house, in a new hilltop subdivision with views of Tauranga Harbour, was hit from behind by a powerful landslide.

The earth smashed through the back of the house, destroying bedrooms and ramming their contents into the front rooms, which were piled floor-to-ceiling with debris.

Mrs Williams said she, her husband and three young daughters were devastated.

"You don't really expect your new house to be demolished."

She has Wednesdays off work and usually spends the day at the house, but yesterday she and her husband decided to go to Matamata to paint a rental property they own.

The couple left after dropping their girls - Alexandra, 10, Brittany, 7, and Geena, 5 - at school.

"It was really fortunate we took that trip to Matamata," Mr Williams said.

Around midday he received a call from a neighbour telling him the bad news.

"I sort of laughed and thought he was joking."

But what the couple saw when they returned was no joke.

The back of the house was flattened. Mrs Williams' car, which was in the garage at the front, had been propelled into the garage door with such force that the door had buckled and the car was protruding outside.

"Just the actual force of what can happen shocks you," she said.

Their girls were also upset - they had chosen colours for their bedrooms before they moved in last December.

Mrs Williams' brother, Murray King, who built the house, said he did not care that his handiwork had been destroyed.

"It doesn't worry me, as long as my sister's alive."

Across town, in Otumoetai, people were also counting their blessings after witnessing ferocious landslides.

Builder James King watched a house collapse onto a block of flats. He was working in a building next to the flats when he heard an "almighty" noise.

He ran outside and watched as the house began to fall apart as a huge tract of earth gave way.

"There was a deck and it was falling away from the house."

Teresa Waddick was standing outside her house, also in Otumoetai, when she saw another steep bank behind houses give way.

She said time seemed to stand still even though the slip happened very quickly. "I didn't know whether to run or not."

The landslide pushed a house across the street from her off its foundations, leaving it partially dangling across a stream. She saw two men come out of the house, both uninjured.