Heavy rain may have been a factor causing a large retaining wall along a curving road to come crashing down in Halifax.

An excavator was out on Fenwood Road in the Armdale neighbourhood Saturday cleaning up the mess after the wall in front of an apartment building collapsed, and tumbled onto the side of the road. The retaining wall, which was painted with a mural, was about three metres tall and six metres wide.

It happened on Saturday at around one in the morning, and when the wall crumpled the sound was heard around the neighbourhood.

'It sounded like a clap of thunder'

Vincentine Richard-Woodbury lives about 150-metres away. "At around one or so this morning, I was still awake in bed reading and I heard a huge, huge bang. And I thought, well that's odd. It sounded like a clap of thunder," she said.

Luis Hernandez says he's glad no one was hurt when a retaining wall on his property collapsed. (Elizabeth Chiu/CBC)

Building landlord Luis Hernandez was helping with traffic control during the clean-up. He said he knew the wall was weak, and had booked an appointment to start the process to have the wall repaired, but plans quickly changed Saturday morning.

Hernandez suspects the intense weather last winter put pressure on the wall, and Friday's rain pushed it over the edge.

"All the snow, and the frost, and the thaw, and all that stuff, I believe it just pushed it – the wall, a lot. And with all this rain, it had enough. It was about time," said Hernandez.

He says his insurance won't cover the cost to build a new wall, which he estimates at about $10,000, so he's on the hook for it.

Hernandez says he's relieved the incident all happened in the middle of the night on the weekend. No one was injured in the mishap.