Wellington house threatened by slips

Mud and debris from a slip block Devon Street.
Mud and debris from a slip block Devon Street.
Five students in Wellington's Devon St had a rude awakening early this morning when a slip endangering their house forced them to leave.

The large slip was reported around 6am after heavy rain overnight, and the students living in the large Victorian villa about 20m above the street were evacuated shortly after, said Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean.

Devon St is closed to traffic while engineers investigate the slip. The house has exposed piles in one corner.

The steep, narrow street running from Kelburn down to Aro Valley is a well known student flatting area and a popular shortcut for motorists.

The slip was one of at least 20 reported in Wellington. There are also slips on Crawford Rd in Kilbirnie, Onslow Rd and Salamanca Rd.

Some were still moving and too unstable and potentially dangerous for contractors to clear today, Mr MacLean said.

In Farnham St, Mornington, a large slip had covered most of the road and damaged two cars.

MetService has issued a warning about heavy rain in the Tararua Range and Mt Taranaki overnight, although wind and rain have eased in other parts of the North Island.

The railway line between Kaikoura and Christchurch remained closed due to a large slip just south of Kaikoura, and would not reopen today as earlier hoped.

The section of track should reopen on Tuesday, said Ontrack spokesman Kevin Ramshaw.

"It's hard to predict, because there's so much earth that's not only on the track but up above it that's still unstable," Mr Ramshaw said.

State Highway 1 was open but partly covered by the slip.

The railway line between Kaikoura and Picton has been repaired. A train carrying general freight, trapped at Kaikoura since the line closed before the weekend, left for Picton around midday.

In Christchurch, persistent rain and a soaked track forced the abandonment of the first day of the Canterbury Jockey Club's winter racing carnival. The raceday had already been shifted from yesterday to today because of the weather.

Despite blue skies today, Environment Waikato's emergency response team remained on heightened alert after heavy overnight rain on Lake Taupo and the upper Waipa River catchment.

Environment Waikato said the lower Waikato River's flood management systems were expected to cope with the extra water flows, but current high river levels in the lower Waikato could last several more days.

"It's too early to say what the peaks will be because there's multiple peaks moving down the system ... but at this stage we're not expecting any stopbank issues or anything like that, all the water's contained within the system," Environment Waikato emergency management officer Adam Munro said.

In the Waikato hydro system, water could be slowed down or sped up if needed, but the Waipa system was uncontrolled.

Residents evacuated on Auckland's North Shore after last week's major landslip are returning to their homes, but another landslip is threatening more homes in the area.

Fourteen houses in the suburb of Torbay were cordoned off when a landslip threatened them last week.

One property will eventually be demolished, and two homes were still being evaluated, but those residents had been advised not to return to them.

Two houses in Mulberry Place in Glenfield also remain empty after slipping land made them unsafe.

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