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Hill Slide Levels House, Creates 50-Yard Chasm

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By ALLISON HOFFMAN, The Associated Press

Published: October 4, 2007

SAN DIEGO - A landslide swept away a chunk of an upscale hilltop neighborhood Wednesday, destroying a home, damaging five others and opening up a 50-yard chasm in a four-lane road.

Forty-six homes in the La Jolla neighborhood were evacuated but no one was hurt in the collapse, which occurred the morning after city officials warned residents of four homes not to sleep in them because the land might give way.

The collapse shortly before 9 a.m. toppled power lines and left a 15-foot-deep ravine of crumpled pavement.

Holli Weld was walking her son to preschool when the street collapsed.

'It was sinking as I was walking by,' she said. 'The street was sinking before our eyes.'

Authorities said most residents had gone to work and only seven people were inside the homes when the collapse occurred.

The landslide cut a cone shape through the neighborhood of million-dollar homes, said Robert Hawk, a city engineering geologist. Six homes were damaged or destroyed and two others were in danger, but the problems appeared to be contained.

At least three significant hill slides have occurred in the area between 1961 and 1994, including a major failure in 1961 that destroyed seven homes under construction.

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