ROCKS THE SIZE OF CAR DESTROYED OUR BRAND NEW HOUSE

Relief as Donald discovered partner was not under rubble

- MOIRA KERR

A COUPLE homeless have been left weeks before Christmas after a landslide wrecked their new home and all their belongings.

Donald MacColl, 61, and his partner, Vivienne Macarthur, 49, invested everything they had into their house, at the foot of the cliffs of Ben Lora, at Benderloch, near Oban.

Donald had spent every weekend for two years constructing the house which was smashed to the ground by landslide boulders on Friday.

The builder had gone out to Oban at 3.30pm and returned a couple of hours later to a scene of total devastation.

He said: "We are homeless, we have lost absolutely everything and we could have been killed.

"I think it was the frost and water got into the rocks and boulders came down on the house - there was one the size of a Mini car. It wasn't from that high, only a couple of metres above the roof ridge, the power of landslides.