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A couple have escaped their home below a cliff, moments before a car-sized boulder smashed into a wall, demolishing their bathroom.
Owner Robin Webley said he was awakened by gravel from the cliff banging into the back wall of his house in his suburban home in the capital, Wellington.
He went outside to investigate. Seeing a stream of gravel falling from the cliff, Webley ran inside, grabbed his wife and they ran - just before the boulder fell and smashed into the house.
"I got one big fright," he said, adding he was happy neither he nor his wife were injured.
Three hours after the first slip, debris was still falling on the house and part of its roof had caved in, officials said.
Hutt City Council engineer Geoff Stuart said a second large boulder was poised to tumble down, and that nobody would be allowed into the house until the structure is assessed and the cliff stabilized.
No other nearby houses were in danger, but rocks and debris closed one lane of a nearby road, he said.
- AP
