The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.

News outlets in Australia have extensive coverage of a landslide that occurred on 14 January 2025 on Penny Lane in McCrae, Australia. The landslide destroyed totally a large house. A employee of the local authority, reportedly on site to inspect the slope, reportedly escaped the failure by jumping from a balcony. They suffered non-life threatening injuries.

7 News has a report on Youtube that includes both ground and aerial footage of the aftermath:-

The site appears to be located at [-38.34631, 144.93500]. This is a Google Street View image of the site, including the slope behind the house that appears to have failed onto the property, pushing it off its foundations:-

News reports suggest that a small landslide had occurred at the site on 6 January 2025, since when it had been under investigation. The news reports do not appear to indicate who owned the slope that failed. It would be interesting to know more about the small structures on the slope – what they were and why they were placed there.

This event is likely to be very challenging for the owners of the property. A guide to domstic insurance in Australia says this about landslides:

“Landslides. These are typically excluded unless they result directly from another insured event, like a flood or storm, and occur within a specific timeframe of said event.”

The area of McCrae around the landslide has been evacuated, but I wonder if this event will have wider implications for the area? There are many large houses built at the top of, on or immediately below this ancient sea cliff, as the Google Street View image below shows:-

In one news report, a local resident is quoted as saying:

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

“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.”

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