Ground swallowing Pta house
2008-08-05 09:14
Pretoria - Large areas of a house in Lyttleton Manor, Centurion, have collapsed over the course of three days, presumably because of a sinkhole.
Danie Els, 42, the owner of the house on the corner of Fitzpatrick and Hans Strijdom Avenue, noticed the first crack between the entrance hall and the kitchen last Thursday.
Before that, there was not a single crack in the house.
Els and his wife are restoring the house, which they bought for R950 000 two years ago. They have already spent R500 000 on the project.
"On Friday the ground and the foundations started sinking," Els said on Monday.
"On Saturday a municipal official told us this was serious and that we had to move out.
'I couldn't believe it'
"We spent the rest of the day on Saturday moving everything from the front of the house (the dining room, the kitchen, the scullery and the entrance hall) to the back of the house.
"Yesterday morning [Sunday] the perimeter walls collapsed and other walls fell this morning [Monday] between about 02:00 and 04:00.
"When I saw how it looked, I couldn't believe it. You can't believe that the ground on which your house stands is so crumbly."
A civil engineer, Hennie ter Stege, said that at this stage it is a subsidence and not a sinkhole.
"With a sinkhole one can see an actual hole. At this stage we can't say yet what the cause of the sinking is."
However, another engineer on the property said the damage to the house was caused by a sinkhole that is about 15m deep.
Beeld videographer fell into hole
While Beeld was at the house, two walls and the corner of the house collapsed. The ground also subsided further.
Beeld's videographer Werner Wippenaar was walking around on the property to film the house when the ground collapsed underneath him.
He fell chest-deep into the hole, and landed on a water pipe which broke his fall.
Els's neighbour's house has also started to crack.
Eddie Visser, 73, said that in the 43 years that he had lived in the house, it had never had a crack.
On Sunday there were cracks that were "as thin as a thread of cotton", and these also appeared in the garage. Visser could fit two match boxes in the crack in the garage.
On Monday it looked as if the top and bottom parts of the house had shifted at the corner of the house.
He cannot move his car, which is parked at the back of the property, because the paving has lifted.
"It's surprising how quickly it happens," Visser said. "When I drove to Nelspruit on Thursday there was nothing wrong, but on my return it looked like this."