SUPPLIED
Shakira Wade and her family were travelling south from Auckland when they hit the large slip that had fallen across SH3 near Urenui.
A New Plymouth woman has described the panic that ensued after her family’s car hit a large landslide that had fallen across both lanes of State Highway 3 near Urenui on Monday night.
Shakira Wade had been asleep in the back seat of her family’s car when they hit the slip at around 10.40pm.
“All I heard was ‘what’s that?’ And then there was a bang, and then my sister-in-law said we crashed.
“I looked out and we were in mud.”
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The family had been travelling down from Auckland and Wade said she was “pretty sure” the land was still slipping when they got there.
“Dad told us to hop out because we saw smoke coming out of his car.”
There was one other car already in the slip, Wade said, and when they got out the mud was knee-deep.
“I just panicked.”
She said that in addition to the slip her nan had passed away the same night, and they had to “wait ages” for a ride into New Plymouth.
While their car was towed out of the mud, and is drivable they had no way to get from New Plymouth to pick it up, Wade said.
Police said they got calls about the slip about 10:45pm Monday.
It was blocking the whole road but no cars were caught underneath it, police said.
The road was opened to one lane at 4am Tuesday and Waka Kotahi has warned drivers to expect delays while travelling through the route, as it is being cleared.
On Tuesday afternoon the transport agency said the highway was still operating just a single lane and would remain under stop/go traffic management until both lanes could be re-opened in the coming days.
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