It sounds like the plot of a Hallowe'en thriller. A small rural village was living yesterday in fear of the damage that could be wreaked on the community by an unknown force.
But it was no celluloid fantasy for the villagers of Derrybrien as they wondered what the landslide would do next.
It was the calm after the storm in south Galway yesterday, as locals came out in better weather to survey the damage done when the mountain came down to meet them earlier in the week.
"We thought we might as well see it, seeing as half the country has seen it by now," said Mr Joe Spain, who has land in the area.
Acres of bog had rolled down the mountain, carrying water, trees and debris with it.
A big, black swamp lay across the Derrybrien to Loughrea road. Tree stumps stuck out of the mass, a reminder of the power of the landslide.
Mr Jimmy Curley stood on top of the rocks brought in to halt the slide. Mud was seeping under the door of a relative's vacant home further up the mountainside.
"It's frightening," he said. "Pure sludge and peat came the day before but that was only travelling slowly. The stuff that was coming yesterday was pure water and peat and the force of it was frightening. There were roars coming from it like a waterfall. And full trees with a lorry-load of clay on them were just sailing down." Mr Curley said the construction work on the 71-turbine windfarm in the mountains had precipitated the landslide.
Hibernian Wind Power and the contractors working on the wind farm in Slieve Aughty were calling it an "act of God", he said. "But God wasn't driving the machines up there. God didn't put water pumps into the holes. That's a man-made disaster."
Hibernian Wind Power is investigating the incident and has assured local people that no more work will be done on the windfarm until the cause of the landslide is established.
Mr Martin Collins, spokesman for the Derrybrien Landslide Action Group, said he believed the landslide was only the tip of the iceberg.
