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Major landslide on Great Ocean Road inevitable

Landslides have been a problem along The Great Ocean Road. Photo: ABC

Landslides have been a problem along The Great Ocean Road. Photo: ABC Photo: ABC

Authorities have confirmed that there will be a major landslide affecting the Great Ocean Road at Wye River in Victoria, saying it was “not a matter of if … it’s a matter of when”.

Deputy incident controller Peter Baker said recent heavy rain had caused extensive landslides between Lorne and Apollo Bay.

“There’s over 100 landslides, some of them are very small, but some of them would be the size of a household garage,” he said.

He said a 30m-long and 40m-high section of land above the road was ready to give way at anytime.

“The geotechnical specialists are saying it’s not a matter of if this piece of dirt slides, it’s a matter of when it does, so it’s imminent that it will happen,” he said.

“Whether that’s tonight, next week, next year, not sure — it’s very hard to tell.

“But what the experts are doing is setting up very sensitive monitoring equipment on it, so that they can actually get instant information with regards to any further movement of this dirt.”

Wye River is still recovering from bushfires which ravaged the area on Christmas Day last year.

On Sunday, Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley said the fires had made the area more susceptible to landslides.

“In the fire area … we haven’t got buildings there anymore, the debris has been removed, we’ve got trees that have been cut down because they were damaged by fire,” he said.

“Now we’ve got water saturated in the ground and potentially the land will slide.”

Concrete barriers to be erected along road

Engineers are working on plans to install concrete barriers along around 200 metres of the road, taking the road back to a single lane.

“These concrete barriers will be set there so when this landslide occurs, whether it’s all at once or bits and pieces of it, the concrete barrier will act us some level of catch barrier,” he said.

“If the whole lot goes in one hit, we’ll have a catastrophic situation and those concrete barriers could well push across the road.”

“The safety of the travelling public on the Great Ocean Road is the primary concern.”

He said it could be a week before the barrier was put up and the road could remain closed for longer until technicians understood what was happening with the dirt and were confident the road was safe.

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