Slip traps Dunedin woman in home

A Dunedin woman had a narrow escape when a landslip trapped her inside her home and brought a tree down on her car.

Emergency services had trouble reaching the Blanket Bay house after the slip overnight yesterday because the slip also blocked the entrance to the woman's property.

Dunedin City Council roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said part of the hillside from above a road fell onto the street and continued down onto the property below.

• Meanwhile, a vehicle with three men in it rolled off the road in snowy conditions in North Otago. Police said it was the first vehicle on the road and there were no tracks to follow.

When their ute slid to the left, the driver apparently overcorrected, sending the vehicle spinning. It slid down a bank and hit a tree.

"Had that tree not been there, they would've ended up in the creek on its roof," Constable Craig Bennett of Kurow said.

The snow was so thick that the vehicle could not be seen from the road.

The front-seat passenger suffered a fracture that left a bone protruding through his hand. Wearing seatbelts saved the two front-seat occupants from more serious injury.

The backseat passenger walked away with a sore shoulder.

The men were taken to Oamaru Hospital and the front-seat passenger was then flown to Dunedin Hospital for surgery.