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Engineers gave Glyn Alsop and Cheryl Coats just three minutes to grab everything they needed and get out of their North Shore home.
The newly renovated Albany Highway house was one of three properties that had to be evacuated on Monday night after flooding caused 50,000 tonnes of dirt to give way.
The Earthquake Commission said it might be weeks before the area is deemed safe and residents are allowed to return.
But it may be longer for Mr Alsop and Ms Coats because their water tank, their only water source, tumbled several metres down the hill and they don't know how they will retrieve it.
The drama began about 6pm when Mr Alsop, who has lived at the house for more than 20 years, walked out his back door and noticed his backyard had "disappeared". The couple immediately called police and the fire service.
"We were told, 'Get all you can in three minutes' because the stability of the ground was uncertain," Mr Alsop said. "There's a big hole where the garden was.
"We're still a bit stunned, it hasn't set in yet. It's not knowing whether we're going to have a house within three weeks or even five weeks that gets us."
Next door, Scott van Tuyl, who runs a building business from his home, was packing up his tools and other equipment and preparing to set up an office out of his girlfriend's lounge on East Coast Bays Rd.
A portable toilet he uses on building sites was sitting in his backyard when the ground from underneath it collapsed and it slid down the bank.
A digger hauled a large container with tools inside up onto the lawn after it was left teetering on the edge.
"My neighbour rang me up and said, 'Have you seen your backyard? It's gone.' The toilet had disappeared like quicksand, the bamboo had gone and the neighbours' water tank took off down the hill." Trees used to line his backyard but they had slipped several metres and he now has a view of Unsworth Heights.
Mr van Tuyl, who has lived at the house for about three years, said he probably would not return home even if the property is deemed safe.
"I don't think I'll ever come back, it's too uneasy, the cracks could move back to the house and then the house will be condemned.
"I'll move on, it's a new chapter."
He was expecting insurance assessors to look at the property today.
Malcolm Meedy, from the Earthquake Commission response team, said it might be the end of the week before geotechnical engineers and surveyors would know when the residents could return.
Engineers would also look at the backyard of another house on the road for any cracks but might have to cut through extensive vegetation to check.
Meanwhile, residents evacuated from three units in an apartment block on Ring Tce in St Mary's Bay after a pohutukawa and about 50cu m of land slipped down a cliff were let back into their homes yesterday.
