Mudslide nearly kills 2

UPDATED: 3:59 p.m.

The outcome of a landslide on Tuesday afternoon could have been a lot worse for two Vernon women.

The two women were enjoying time in the pool at The Mandalay condo building off Okanagan Landing Road when mud and trees started barreling down the hill towards them.

"At about [3:50 p.m.] I got a call from our Accent Management, Jeff, that takes care of our strata here and informed me what had happened," says Terry Davies, strata president.

Davies says the pool and surrounding area looks like a 'disaster zone' following the mudslide.

"Our pool is full of mud, trees and debris, large boulders," he said. "Fortunately there were only two people in the pool at the moment."

"One woman that was in the pool, I think she is probably just sore and bruised," Davies said. "She dove under the water as trees were coming at her and one of the trees actually got underneath her and threw her right out of the pool onto the deck."

"The other woman had seen it coming and laid herself against the south retaining wall and ended up with a fractured finger and her glasses got broken."

Minutes before the incident occurred several children were in the pool area, but thankfully they were gone when disaster struck.

At this time about 12 people on the bottom floor of the retirement type building have been evacuated and are unable to return until it is deemed safe to do so.

The cause of the incident is under investigation.

ORIGINAL: 1:53 p.m.

Two people narrowly avoided serious injury after a wall of mud came crashing into a pool at The Mandalay condominiums in Vernon Tuesday afternoon. 

The landslide sent trees, rock and debris into the pool area, where minutes earlier several children were playing.

Two people were in the pool at the time, and they tell Castanet that they could hear a rumbling in the moments before the slide came crashing down. 

There was no time to get out of the way so one woman dove under the water just as a tree crashed into the pool.

The force sent her flying out of the water and onto the concrete. The other woman tried to run to a nearby fence but was still injured. 

As a result, the condo development was evacuated. Twelve residents are forced to stay elsewhere until it has been deemed safe to reenter the suites.  

The cause of the slide is still under investigation.