Residents living on the largest area of natural vegetation on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, used to call the coastal ground movement slowly shifting beneath their feet the best thing that ever happened to them.

For some homeowners in the city, where the median list price is about $2 million, the landslides have brought ruin, ripping homes apart at their foundations and splintering them beyond repair. As water from the heavy rains seeped into a sandy layer beneath the surface,

The land is moving and sinking so fast in parts of the California community of Rancho Palos Verdes that authorities have switched off gas and electricity “indefinitely” to hundreds of homes. The area has long grappled with unstable land but now the landslides causing the problem have accelerated.