Emu Heights landslide: Naizal Buksh speaks of driveway disaster

A school run has potentially saved a family from being caught up in an unfathomable landslide, which the homeowner describing his own front yard as “something you’d see in a movie”.

A school run has potentially saved a family from being caught up in an unfathomable landslide, in scenes described by Emu Plains father Naizal Buksh as “something you’d see in a movie”.

About 2:40pm on Monday, Naizal Buksh’s wife Rasleen left the family home for a five minute trip to pick up the couple’s youngest child from school. When she returned she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Naizal Buksh outside his Emu Plains home. Picture: Simran Gill

The landslide took place on Monday afternoon. Picture: Simran Gill

“She noticed half the driveway and a good part of my land had moved away,” Mr Buksh told The Daily Telegraph.

“She was in total shock when she saw it. She was in tears, a bit hysterical, because you don’t expect these kinds of things to happen to you. She said it was an out of body experience.”

Pictures and videos of the home missing half of its driveway and front yard went viral on social media as wild wet weather lashed Sydney, with an incredible crater now located on the spot where the family once parked their cars.

Naizal Buksh said the school run potentially saved his wife and child. Picture: Simran Gill

Mr Buksh, who has three children with his wife, said he was extremely thankful no one was home at the time.

“My wife missed it by about five minutes,” he said. “We usually have cars parked there. If she’d been sitting in the car with my daughter, they could’ve fallen into that hole.”

In the space of two hours the family had been evacuated from the property after police, the fire brigade and the NSW SES showed up at the scene.

“They (SES) came, they evaluated the scene and told us we had 10 minutes to evacuate because they weren’t sure if the house was going to follow it afterwards,” he said.

The experience still feels surreal to Mr Buksh who said: “You see things like this happening in TV shows and movies but you never expect it to happen in your own front yard”.

The family are insured by NRMA who are sending out estimators and assessors tomorrow.

“They’ll (NRMA) have an understanding and then prepare a report which takes seven to 10 days,” Mr Buksh said. “From there they’ll give us an understanding of how long it will take to repair.”

One thing he knows for sure was that it won’t be cheap.

“I can’t even fathom what the cost might be on these repairs but I know it’s gonna be expensive,” he said.

The family have lived in the home for eight years and Mr Buksh said he believed council and development approvals were appropriately sought when the previous owner built the home.

“In Australia, we have all these certification authorities so I suspect they’ve done their job properly but we’ll find out in due course.”

The Buksh family are staying with family in the short-term until they can find temporary accommodation.

Mr Baksh wished to share his heartfelt thanks to the emergency services who attended the scene.

“They were here within moments and helped our family evacuate safely,” he said.