A family living on New Zealand's North Island had to be evacuated from their home after a bubbling mud crater appeared in their garden and swallowed up their garage this week. Susan Gedye, who lives in the home in Rotorua, told Radio New Zealand that she woke up early Tuesday morning thinking an earthquake had struck.
"I got woken up about 2 a.m. thinking 'oh, there's a huge earthquake happening here,' there was a lot of shaking and jolting," Gedye told the news station. But, when Gedye walked into her kitchen and looked out the window, she was shocked to see "a big geyser coming out of the ground" outside her home, in her garden.
"I could see the steam all over the kitchen windows and then could really hear it, and so I looked out the kitchen window and just saw a big geyser coming out of the ground, from the pipe in the bank."
As bubbling and steaming mud pool expanded, the family's garage eventually became engulfed on Thursday, the Rotorua Lakes Council said.
"At 1am on Tuesday 25 June Council received a report that the ground was shaking and a loud noise was coming from the bank behind a house on Meade St in Whakarewarewa," Rotorua Lakes Council confirmed in a statement. "Rotorua Lakes Council’s geothermal inspector, Peter Brownbridge, went to check the area and steam was observed venting under pressure from a hole in the lip of the bank with wet mud also being thrown out of the hole."
The council said events like this are not uncommon in the area and have occurred in recent years - though in the past, it had just been steam vents which eventually stopped. The council said this new mud pool forming is a bit different than previous events.
"We saw steam venting under pressure from the lip at the back and subsequent boiling and mud being ejected from the site," geothermal and regulatory inspector Peter Brownbridge told CNN. "At the moment we are just letting it take its course -- the resident has been moved out of the house for precaution and we've fenced off at the top there just to stop people coming too close."
Rotorua is located on New Zealand's North Island, which is known for its geothermal activity and features several notable geysers, including the Pohutu Geyser at Whakarewarewa. Experts say thermal activity in the area is thanks to the Rotorua caldera, on which the town of Rotorua resides.