LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- A state of emergency was declared on Thursday in San Diego, about 120 kilometers south of Los Angeles following a massive landslide.

    Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council unanimously endorsed the declaration this morning following the landslide on Wednesday.

    Around 110 homes were affected on three streets affected by the slide and the buckling along Soledad Mountain Road when the slide occurred on Wednesday, city officials said.

    The slide caused structural damage, power and water interruptions, evacuations or limited access.

    Although most of the residents displaced by the landslide can return to their homes on Thursday, evacuation orders remained for 36 homes this morning.

    Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire Department, said that firefighters evacuated 49 people from 55 homes.

    Nine homes remain red-tagged as uninhabitable, and 27 have been yellow-tagged, which bars residents unless they are escorted by authorities to retrieve important possessions, Sanders said.

    The 27 houses are being evaluated to see if they can be declared safe, he said.

    "We'll be clearing this up as soon as we can," said Sanders, who declared the state of emergency to make the city eligible for federal and state disaster funds.

    The landslide should not have been much of a surprise to residents. The hillside began to move and the road to crack in July, and homeowners complained to City Hall about cracks in the sidewalk in front of their homes. An engineering firm was hired by the city last month to investigate.

    Two weeks ago, city officials sent a letter to homeowners advising them of the danger.

    On Tuesday, the city stepped up its warning. Workers went door to door with a letter advising residents in several houses that "you should not sleep in your homes effective immediately."

    But residents complained that the city had not done enough to ward off the danger.

    Sanders, who rushed back to San Diego from Washington, said the city had hired a forensic geologist to determine the cause of the landslide and whether city inaction played any role.

    Geologists say the land beneath the homes and in the backyards is unstable because of forces remaining from when an earthquake caused by the Rose Canyon fault created what is now called Soledad Mountain.