Dangerous bubbling mud crater suddenly appears in family's back garden

'Shaking and jolting' that heralded geyser's arrival felt like an earthquake, mother says

A New Zealand family have been forced to abandon their home after a fast-growing “mud geyser” emerged overnight in their back garden.

Susan Gedye, who lives in Rotorua, a town on the North Island notorious for its geothermal activity, said she thought there was an earthquake when she was woken at about 2am on Wednesday by “a lot of shaking and jolting”.

But after going downstairs to investigate, she saw through the steamed-up kitchen windows “a big geyser coming out of the ground”.

Footage shot by a local broadcaster showed hot mud being intermittently spat out of the bubbling pool, which was also spewing vast amounts of steam.

“When the morning came ... it had turned into a huge mud geyser so that was kind of spectacular but different and a little bit scary,” Ms Gedye told Radio New Zealand.

She added: “Just as time has gone by – like [an] hour or just every half-hour – it’s turned into something really spectacular. It’s like a huge big crater in the front lawn and there’s mud flying like about 10m into the air.”

After initially being ruling it was safe to stay in the home, authorities found a sinkhole under Ms Gedye’s kitchen, forcing her and her two children to abandon the property.

Returning the next day, she discovered the pool had grown even bigger and was threatening to engulf her garage.

“The whole corner of the big double garage that’s on the bank, it’s like there’s a big hole underneath that so it’s kind of a matter of time before that will probably end up down the bank,” she said.

Peter Brownbridge, a geothermal inspector for the local council, said the “unusual” pool was produced by heat escaping through a fault line which crossed under the town.

Government volcanologist Brad Scott told onlookers not to throw stones into the geyser.

“That’s human nature, you put fences up and people will climb over it to have a look,” he said.

“It’s one of the things we’ve noticed over the years with geothermal features, if there’s a spare stone around someone will pick it up and throw it in.”