Terrifying home security footage shows a woman narrowly escaping a massive boulder that came crashing through the walls of her new home over the weekend.
Caroline Sasaki of Honolulu told local NBC affiliate “Hawaii News Now” that the incident occurred just before midnight, as she was walking toward the couch in her living room to watch TV. (Different outlets have variously described the event as taking place Saturday and Sunday night.)
Authorities told “Hawaii News Now” that the boulder, which is five feet high and five feet wide, scraped a family car before it barrelled through the cinderblock wall of Sasaki’s home. It then crashed through the living room and another wall before coming to rest in a bedroom.
Fortunately, none of the four people who were in the home were injured — though Sasaki told ABC’s KITV 4 that she’s been told if she had taken “one more step, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“I heard the loud boom, and apparently, the boulder passed right in front of me, which I didn’t know,” Sasaki told “Hawaii News Now.” “I didn’t see it. All I heard was the boom and then somebody asking me if I was OK.”
Sasaki was still shaken by the incident when she spoke to Honolulu news channel KABC.
“Basically, I’m in shock,” Sasaki told KABC. “I refuse to look at the videos, so I — I’m not sure how close — but everybody’s telling me I’m lucky.”
The Sasaki family told local news station KHON that they’d just moved into the newly built home in Honolulu’s Palolo Valley earlier this month.
Sasaki told KHON that she grew up in Palolo Valley and large rocks don’t often come rolling down hills — even in “heavy rain and hurricane warnings.”
She told KITV that she and her neighbours suspect the rock came down because of excavation work for a planned development on a mountain close to her property.
“I was in fear of this happening from before, from when they started,” Sasaki told KITV.
KHON spoke to the development’s owner Bingning Li, who insisted his project is not to blame.
“Not at all, this is from way above, I looked at one of those rocks about 50 feet away from on top of the property and landed over there and then made its way down here,” Li told KHON. “So it hit one of the cables that was supposed to stop it and the cable snapped. That took a lot of energy away otherwise this damage would be way more.”
“Hawaii News Now” reports that the incident is still being investigated by authorities. The outlet said that as of Monday, the boulder was still in Sasaki’s home.