Council worker hospitalised after jumping from second storey of home as it collapsed on Penny Lane in McCrae south-east of MelbourneFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA man whose house on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula collapsed down a cliff in a landslide on Tuesday morning, has said he is thankful nobody was killed in the incident.The house on Penny Lane in McCrae collapsed shortly before 9am, injuring a council worker, who was hospitalised.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…Council worker hospitalised after jumping from second storey of home as it collapsed on Penny Lane in McCrae south-east of MelbourneFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA man whose house on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula collapsed down a cliff in a landslide on Tuesday morning, has said he is thankful nobody was killed in the incident.The house on Penny Lane in McCrae collapsed shortly before 9am, injuring a council worker, who was hospitalised.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…
A man whose house on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula collapsed down a cliff in a landslide on Tuesday morning, has said he is thankful nobody was killed in the incident.
The house on Penny Lane in McCrae collapsed shortly before 9am, injuring a council worker, who was hospitalised.
“We are very grateful that nobody died today,” owner Nick Moran told media outlets in a written statement.
“Our thoughts are with the injured Mornington [Peninsula] Shire employee who we understand is in a stable condition.”
Moran said his holiday home had been hit by a “30-tonne landslide” from higher up the steep hill a week earlier.
“I’m not even sure how to comprehend what has occurred and how lucky we are,” he said in an online post.
“It looks like it has destroyed our house which doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things but narrowly missed my daughter and wife let alone the stack of people we entertained there over the break.”
The house was vacated after that landslide, which was followed by the collapse Tuesday morning.
A Mornington Peninsula Shire council worker, aged in his 50s, suffered injuries to his lower limbs after he was forced to jump from the second storey of the house as it started to slide down the cliff face in the collapse. He was at the property undertaking an inspection relating to the earlier slip.
Ambulance Victoria said paramedics had taken the man to Frankston hospital.
A State Emergency Service operations manager, Chris Gregory, said multiple nearby homes remained a concern and six properties had been evacuated.
“A couple of them were vacant holiday homes and others had residents who were working with councils and other agencies to make sure they have a safe place to go,” Gregory told ABC Radio Melbourne.
The destroyed house was empty after being hit by a smaller landslide about a week earlier. It was being monitored by geotechnical engineers.
The Mornington Peninsula shire mayor, Anthony Marsh, said the council had informed the property’s owner and their insurers of work needed after the first incident on 5 January. Marsh said at that point the house was vacated.
“There was potentially the presence of water … and there was concern about the stability of the site,” he said.
“Those investigations are ongoing, but there’s obviously unstable land, so we need to work out exactly what’s going on there,” Marsh said.
“It’s devastating for the owners and it must be a huge concern for the close residents around.”
David Kennedy, a University of Melbourne geomorphologist said building houses on top of sea cliffs destabilised the soil and could trigger slides.
“That can happen by putting weight on top of the cliff, it can also happen by building on the cliff face itself or even at the base of it,” he said.
“The debris supports it and once you remove it that starts to make things a lot more unstable.”
Authorities disconnected utility services in nearby properties on Tuesday and the Nepean Highway was closed between McCrae and Dromana.
Marsh said the area on Penny Lane would be closed until at least 7pm on Wednesday.
“Those investigations are ongoing, but there’s obviously unstable land, so we need to work out exactly what’s going on there,” Marsh said.
“It’s devastating for the owners and it must be a huge concern for the close residents around.”
Tanina Osborne, who swims in the area each morning, posted a video to Facebook from the scene, saying the house appeared to have fallen on to another property.
Osborne said she had heard an “almighty tumble, like a truckload of rock had just been dumped on the ground”.
“My husband and I ran across the road and I saw that this house had tumbled down the hill – I’ve just never seen anything like it,” she later said.
Osborne said a water outlet near their daily swimming spot had been gushing into the bay three weeks earlier due to a water main issue on a road above where the landside occurred.
An advice alert for the incident warned that the landslide could continue to move for days.
Kim, a caller to Melbourne’s 3AW radio station, witnessed the landslide and said the house had landed at the back of another home.
She said she was driving passed when she noticed the house had collapsed.
“It’s behind other houses or units that are kind of at the front, and this house has completely crashed down … It’s landed into the back of another house,” she said.
There were two homes at the top of the hill that were not affected and units at street level were standing, Kim said.
“We had that big downpour two days ago,” she said, adding: “It’s a fairly steep incline that the houses are built on.”
The shire has established a community relief hub in Dromana for affected residents.