Walls come tumbling down

What youre seeing right here, is going to be a vast of bad memories, said Mayor Ross Humber, pointing to a string of houses as he pulled up to a fenced-off portion of the old Route 430 highway.

In the early morning hours of September 26, demolition began on condemned properties in Daniels Harbour. The community of nearly 260 was plagued by a series of landslides in the last few years and the Newfoundland and Labrador government was forced to condemn a number of properties, so as not to risk the lives of homeowners and further damage to infrastructure.Jeff Elliott photo

Theres a lot of this town that should never have been dead.

Fluorescent pink Xs marked the fate of more than a dozen properties that traced the Daniels Harbour coastline and with several swipes from the arm of an excavator, followed by a smattering of vinyl siding, demolition began during the early morning hours of September 26.

One after the other, as if part of a checklist, family homes became piles of rubble.

The community of nearly 260 was plagued by a series of landslides in the last few years. In October 2006 a state of emergency was declared when the earth gave way, displacing four houses and one business as masses of soil descended into the Atlantic swell below.

In April 2007, 120,000 cubic metres of earth toppled into the sea by a landslide three-times more powerful than the first to hit just months prior, causing a bungalow to careen over the chewed-away cliff, splashing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Many nearby homeowners were forced to flee their houses, which were left on the embankment edge, though to be too dangerous to occupy.

The 30-metre escarpment also devoured a portion of Route 430, which once cut through the town, leaving most of the communities on the Northern Peninsula temporarily cut off from the rest of the province. Engineers eventually made a new route that completely bypassed the town.

One last landslide occurred in June 2008, but it didnt endanger any homes.

A team of geotechnical engineers conducted a survey in 2009 based on the brittle soil and instability of the coastline, to determine the long-term safety and well being for the community. According to scientists, the clay-based cliff had dealt with a fair amount of erosion from excess water in the slope, causing the area to become saturated. This made it easier for the soil material to shift.

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Walls come tumbling down