On a January evening in McCrae, a large home perched on the Mornington Peninsula escarpment slid away from its foundations and crumpled down the slope. Neighbouring properties were suddenly at risk and several households were told to leave with little notice. One council employee who had been inside the collapsed home was taken to hospital with serious injuries. Residents who had watched smaller slips in the area over previous years feared that the entire cliff line might prove unsafe in the long term.
Inquiry finds burst water main at the centre of the disaster
The Victorian government ordered an independent Board of Inquiry to examine why the ground failed so dramatically in such a sought after coastal suburb. Over weeks of hearings the panel heard from residents, engineers, geologists and the agencies responsible for local infrastructure. Its report concluded that a burst water main owned by South East Water was the immediate cause of the landslide.
According to the findings, the underground main had been leaking for months before the slope finally gave way. The report estimated that about forty million litres of water seeped into the escarpment, saturating soils and undermining their strength. Residents had been reporting unusual flows for some time, describing water rushing along gutters, bubbling through cracked road surfaces and soaking nature strips long before the failure. Despite these warnings, the exact location of the leak was not identified until many months after it began.
The inquiry was also critical of the way the Mornington Peninsula Shire had handled long standing information about instability on the escarpment. A past geotechnical study had already classified the area as highly susceptible to landslides, yet the council relied on case by case planning decisions instead of applying a stronger planning overlay that could have imposed clearer controls on building in hazardous zones. The panel noted that the major landslide came only days after a smaller slip at the same property and followed other damaging events in the area in 2022.
Accountability, recommendations and what comes next
South East Water told the inquiry and the public that the McCrae leak was extremely unusual and that crews had struggled to pinpoint it because the break was several hundred metres from the eventual landslide site. The corporation has indicated it is putting significant funds into renewing ageing pipes on the peninsula, including the main that failed above McCrae. At the time the report was released, questions about compensation and who will ultimately pay for stabilisation works were still being worked through.
The Board of Inquiry produced thirty recommendations aimed at reducing the chance of another disaster. Key steps include appointing an independent mediator to bring together the council, South East Water and affected landowners to agree on remediation works, reviewing local water infrastructure, and introducing planning controls that better reflect erosion and landslide risk along the escarpment. The state government has said it accepts the recommendations that fall within its powers, while the local council has broadly supported the findings and signalled that an interim erosion management overlay will be considered.
For residents whose homes are damaged or uninhabitable, the process is far from over. Some families remain unable to return, living with uncertainty about whether their properties can be made safe or will need major reconstruction. Local representatives have called for relief from taxes and charges while properties are unusable. Beyond McCrae, the story is a pointed reminder for many coastal and hillside communities that ageing underground services, changing ground conditions and delayed responses can combine with devastating results, and that careful planning, robust maintenance programs and effective water leak detective are essential to keep people and homes safe.
