Wellington's mayor is asking the city council to review its plans around retaining walls ahead of another wet week for the capital.
It follows hundreds of slips in Wellington because of recent heavy rain. Meanwhile, other properties atop the capital's hills are teetering on the edge of possible collapse.
All over the city, retaining walls have given way and some roads remain blocked. In the suburb Kelburn, a new retaining wall is being built under what are now strict building codes.
Whena Owen investigates the spate of slips around the capital and finds out they’re going to get worse. (Source: Q and A)
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster, who is seeking re-election in this year's local elections, told Q+A he wanted council staff to see if there were any other areas of "particular concern" when it came to retaining walls.
Foster, pointing to extensive damage around flood-ravaged Nelson - said it was also important to keep Wellington's woes in perspective.
"My heart goes out to the people of Nelson and Marlborough and the top of the South. What we're seeing there is absolutely horrendous.
"What we have in Wellington is we have a lot of slips when it rains hard for a period of time … the ground is so wet that the rotten rock that a lot of Wellington is built on just tends to give way."
Meanwhile, Green Party-endorsed Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau said she wanted to build - or re-build - a resilient Wellington.
She believed part of the mayor's job was to work with ministers and lobby on behalf of Wellington to get support and funding for resilience.
Whanau added that part of the solution lay in fixing leaks from pipes that seeped into the soil, and investing in wetlands and rain gardens to help direct water back to the coastline.
Figures from NIWA show last month was the wettest July ever recorded in New Zealand. In Wellington, Wellington City Council crews had been called out to 400 slips over the July and August winter period.
As of Friday, 13 households around the city were still unable to return home.
READ MORE: Thousands of coastal NZ homes at risk amid 'baked in' climate change impacts
In its climate mitigation plan released earlier this month, the Government signalled it was unwilling to "bear every risk and cost of climate change". It urged property owners, insurance companies and local councils to contribute their own funds to prepare for a reality of climate change-driven wild weather events.
Insurance Council of New Zealand CEO Tim Grafton warned insurance companies had "a role to respond in terms of pricing" if people "[sat] on their hands and do nothing to reduce risk".
"So, it's very important for New Zealand to stand up and demonstrate how we are adapting and reducing the risks - whether it's building with the earthquake risks or climate change [and] how we are responding to reduce the impacts."
Slips occur when soil becomes moist and heavier, which can happen after significant rainfall. Steeper slopes are more prone to slips.
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