Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Hevig zware regenval zorgt voor aardverschuivingen San Fransisco VS

More showers loom in wake of landslide

• 120 residents had to evacuate at 3 a.m.
• No injuries were reported
• Authorities investigating cause of landslide
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SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- More rain predicted in San Francisco threatens to further crumble a hillside that fell apart in a landslide Tuesday.

Residents were sent fleeing into the street in the North Beach district at 3:10 a.m. (6:10 a.m. ET) but no one was injured during the incident on the south side of Telegraph Hill, police said.

As many as 120 residents were evacuated from a high-priced condominium at the top of the hill and several apartment buildings at the bottom.

Some of the rocks that came down were the size of Volkswagen Beetles, according to CNN Producer Chuck Afflerbach. (Watch the landslide leave a mess in San Francisco )

Debris piled up to the second floor of some of the buildings at the bottom, he said.

City building inspectors have red-tagged seven buildings affected by the slide, including the condominium building at the top, where a deck dangled precariously after part of its foundation fell away.

The tags mean the structures are uninhabitable until further inspections are carried out, but police were escorting residents to their homes to get urgently needed personal effects.

After a similar landslide in 2000, residents on one part of the hill pooled their money to reinforce the slope. Fifty steel rods were drilled into the bedrock and wire mesh was laid over the hillside.

Bill Strawn, a spokesman for the city Department of Buildings and Inspection, said that problems with the hillside were the responsibility of the homeowners and the city would work with them on approval of plans to correct the situation.

The residents of the side of the hill that fell apart Tuesday opted out of the reinforcement plan for their section of the hill.

The Red Cross has set up a temporary shelter for displaced residents but most are going to stay with family and friends. About 20 people had sought shelter, the Red Cross said.