House collapses along road plagued by landslide issues

PITTSBURGH — A condemned house collapsed Friday morning along a road plagued by issues from a landslide last year in Pittsburgh's Perry North neighborhood.

PHOTOS: House collapses along Perry North road plagued by landslide issues

The house collapse along Semicir Street follows a landslide in February 2018 that led to several homes being condemned. Channel 11 News has been monitoring developments in the area since then.

The home was reduced to a pile of rubble Friday. All that was left standing after the collapse was a fire escape.

Unreal seeing how this house on Semicir Street in Perry North just completely collapsed this morning. The only this still standing is the fire escape pic.twitter.com/qQaPqb2MEK
— Aaron Martin (@WPXIAaronMartin) February 22, 2019

“It's been on our minds for a while now, given they were condemned in February. The house has been starting to lean over the past week or so,” Jade Diamond, who was two doors down from the collapse, said.

No one was injured.

It was not immediately clear whether the collapse was caused by further shifting of the land.

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Inspectors from the Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections have been called, officials said.

While the home was ordered to be evacuated a year ago, officials said it was not demolished because the hillside was insecure and was not safe for contractors. They also said demolition could have further eroded the hillside, endangering other structures on the street.

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“For the same reasons the now-collapsed structure will be left there until it can be safely cleared away,” a news release from the city of Pittsburgh said.

Earlier in the week, the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure announced that engineers completed geotechnical borings on Semicir Street to assess the condition of the hillside.

“Plans for retaining the hillside will be completed in an estimated three months, and remediation to stabilize it is expected to commence two months after design completion,” the city’s news release said.

The house next to the one that collapsed on Semicir St. is also condemned. An official on-scene says the foundation is cracked, but it doesn’t appear to be in imminent danger of collapsing pic.twitter.com/JSUwR2qyp8
— Aaron Martin (@WPXIAaronMartin) February 22, 2019