A sudden landslip on Acheron Road in Porirua forced multiple families to evacuate their homes on Sunday morning, after heavy rain caused a section of land to collapse onto two properties.
Emergency services responded around 9.30am, with Fire and Emergency New Zealand assisting in the initial evacuation of approximately six properties. While most residents have since returned home, two properties remain uninhabitable pending engineering assessments.
Mike Mendonça, Porirua City Council’s general manager of infrastructure, said the slip was triggered by intense rainfall saturating the already sodden ground.
“There’s some debris leaning up against the back of the homes and we’re still worried about the stability of the bank,” Mendonça said. “That’s why we have a geotech engineer investigation still underway.”
The slip occurred on private land, meaning the responsibility for clean-up and repairs now falls to homeowners, insurance companies, and private engineers.
Engineers also assessed nearby properties on Walker Avenue, located above the slip site, and determined they were safe.
This incident is the latest in a string of minor slips around Porirua over the past few weeks, with several causing temporary road closures.
“By and large they’ve been an inconvenience, but not a major for us,” Mendonça said. “Like the rest of New Zealand we’re a bit wet, but not nearly as bad as it is in the South Island, so our thoughts are with those guys down there.”
No injuries were reported in the Acheron Road incident.