Council worker hospitalised after McCrae home falls down cliff in landslide on the Mornington Peninsula

A council worker was forced to leap from the balcony of a luxury beachside home on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula when it came tumbling down a cliff during a landslide.

The $2 million property on Penny Lane at McCrae collapsed, falling about 50m onto the street below, shortly before 9am on Tuesday.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Hillside houses crumble in seconds after landslide

One person, a Mornington Peninsula Council worker in his 50s, was injured in the collapse. He was taken to hospital with lower body injuries, where he remains in a stable condition.

It’s understood he was inspecting the property at the time after another slip at the property just over a week ago.

The man was standing on a second storey balcony when the cliff face gave way, forcing him to jump for safety.

A group of men cycling along the road witnessed the entire incident.

“Council was going in there today to inspect (it as) it had been condemned and was gonna be pulled down,” a cyclist told 7NEWS

“He jumped on the balcony and it started to go and he dived off and probably shattered his legs and pelvis and everything.”

The man remains at Frankston Hospital in a stable condition.

More than half a dozen properties surrounding the house have been evacuated until at least Wednesday night as emergency services are concerned the rainfall forecast could have the potential to cause further landslips.

Heavy rainfall caused a major landslide in the area in November 2022.

Since then, it’s understood council has installed stormwater drains at the top of the hill.

However, instead of fixing the problem, locals told 7NEWS the water had just been redirected and that another major landslide was bound to happen.

“I’ve seen a lot of water bubbling out of the concrete and it’s slowly been coming out from under our house,” Simon Borghesi said.

“It’s completely saturated the ground beneath, there’s nowhere for it to go. This whole land is just so unstable.

“It seems like anywhere can just go at any point.”

Borghesi said he had a close call on Monday when his veggie patch suddenly disappeared.

“Mum was out there picking some zucchinis, then 20 minutes later it was gone,” he said.

“It’s just a big hole where it used to be vegetation.

“We are lucky so far no one has been killed.”

When asked why the council worker was on the balcony when the home was known to be unstable, Mornington Peninsula Mayor Anthony Marsh said he didn’t know.

He also couldn’t answer when asked if the council had redirected storm water on nearby Viewpoint Rd.

“We had a geotechnical engineer come out and assess the site 24 or 48 hours after (the slip) and prepare a report and the site was deemed unsafe,” Marsh told AAP.

“Since then, we’ve spoken to the owners and to the insurers to list issues and have notified recommendations, and over the past sort of week, our staff have been there regularly, just doing investigations about the site.

“But had we not seen that, who knows what could have happened.”

‘Horrible sound’

University of Melbourne geomorphologist David Kennedy said building heavy structures such as houses on top of sea cliffs destabilised 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.”

Local resident Tanina Osborne and her husband had just finished their morning beach swim when they heard a “horrible sound”.

“I heard this really, really loud rumbling and like a crash,” Osborne told AAP.

“So 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.”

Authorities have disconnected utility services in nearby properties as they assess the area for danger and the Nepean Highway has been closed between McCrae and Dromana.

WorkSafe is also investigating.