Crews are concerned heavy rain and potential thunderstorms could cause a further “slip-up” in landslide activity after a home crashed down a hill in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, leaving a man in hospital.
Emergency services were called to a property on View Point Rd in McCrae – about 59km south of Melbourne – about 8.45am on Tuesday after a landslide caused the building to collapse.
The building slid down the hill, injuring a council worker inspecting the property.
“We are very grateful that nobody died today,” owner Nick Moran said in a written statement.
“Our thoughts are with the injured Mornington (Peninsula) Shire employee who we understand is in a stable condition.”
The home crashed down a hill on Tuesday following a landslide. Picture: 9News
State Emergency Service incident controller Mark Daw on Tuesday said one house had been destroyed and three other homes had been damaged, one seriously, in Tuesday’s landslide, while seven homes had been evacuated.
“There’s quite a considerable amount of slip that’s happened up there,” Mr Daw said.
He said the SES had responded to smaller landslides in the area before “but nothing of this scale”.
Mr Daw said there’d been some further movement on Wednesday morning, with concerns heavy rain and thunderstorms forecast throughout the day could cause further slips.
“We had a tiny little bit (of movement) in the early hours of this morning, which was just 2mm, but since then it has not moved,” Mr Daw told 3AW on Wednesday.
“We’ve got a lot of thunder and lightning happening and we’re concerned about the potential for rain … we might have up to 20mm coming through.
“We can’t predict what potentially could come down, we know that there probably will be another slip but we’re unsure of how much.”
Geotechnical engineers have been assessing the scene. Picture: Facebook
He said geotechnical engineers were “checking out” the area on Wednesday morning.
“We are still worried there is potential for a further slip up there, and we have the monitoring equipment up there at the moment for that,” Mr Daw told the ABC.
A Victoria SES spokesman confirmed crews were still in control of the scene on Wednesday afternoon and would continue to monitor as thunderstorms threatened to move in across the state on Wednesday.
The spokesman said SES crews would hand off to the local council in the coming days so they could begin a recovery phase.
A Frankston man in his 50s suffered a broken leg on Tuesday after the home crashed down the hill.
He was treated by paramedics on the scene and was taken to Frankston Hospital in a stable condition.