Stories

Abbotsford Landslide

From 1968 onwards several families in the Dunedin suburb of Abbotsford noticed hairline cracks were appearing in their homes - in the brickwork, concrete floors and driveways.

Then during May 1979 workmen discovered that a leaking water main in the area hadn’t broken: it had been pulled apart. Local authorities called geologists in to find out what was going on. They discovered that water had made layers of clay on the hill soft and the ground above it was sliding on this slippery surface.

Next, two cracks parallel to each other, opened up.

A civil defence emergency was declared on August 6, although the situation wasn’t thought to be urgent as geologists believed that landslip would continue to move only slowly.

However, that wasn’t to be and on the evening of August 9 a seven-hectare section of Abbotsford started down the hill at a rate of over three metres a minute, with houses and 17 people on board.

It was about 15 minutes before the slide came to a halt and the stranded people were able to be rescued – fortunately there were no injuries.

Twenty-one houses were destroyed in the slip and several more were later pushed over the edge and into the chasm. Still more homes were structurally damaged. In total 69 Abbotsford homes were destroyed or made uninhabitable.

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