Thirty families moved as cliff gives way above the Talas

TESKEY-JAR — Thirty families in Teskey-Jar were moved out of their homes yesterday after part of the loess terrace on which the village stands collapsed into the gorge of the upper Talas following days of heavy rain.

The village's houses stand along the edge of a cliff about 40 meters high. Residents said a section of the edge gave way before dawn on Monday, carrying gardens, fences and a barn into the gorge. No one was hurt. Cracks have since opened in the ground behind several houses, and the district administration ordered the families nearest the edge to leave.

"We heard it like thunder, but there was no storm," said Bübüjan Kerimova, whose garden now ends in open air. "In the morning my apricot trees were at the bottom of the river."

The families are staying with relatives and in the village school. The district administration said they would be given new plots farther from the gorge, and a geologist from the territorial emergency department warned that more of the terrace edge could fall while the ground remained wet.