Residents of Torquay who were forced to evacuate from their homes due to a leaking dam are expected to be allowed back into their homes today.
About 140 residents of the town on Victoria's Surf Coast were evacuated early on Saturday morning amid fears the 180 megalitre dam on private property could collapse and flood the area.
SES officials said engineers had warned there was "potential for catastrophic failure" of the dam.
The farm dam on Horseshoe Bend Road, Torquay backs onto a number of houses and had been leaking since Friday.
SES incident controller Alistair Drayton said there had been good work done overnight using eight high transfer pumps to reduce the level of the water.
"What we're trying to do is remove the risk and the subsequent consequences of any failure of the dam by moving the water down to the two metre mark," he said.
"We could apply more pumps to remove [the water] much quicker, but there is a dam integrity issue and that's being measured and monitored by engineers who are on site together with emergency services."
The water has fallen by about one metre with another metre to go, Mr Drayton said.
"We hope to have [the residents] back in their homes by later this afternoon," he said.
