While Australians, particularly skiers and people who live in and around the Snowy Mountains, will be saddened by the deadly landslide at Thredbo, they will also be asking questions about the cause of the landslide and the resourcing and state of preparedness of rescue services.
It seems this might not be purely a case of a natural disaster out of the blue. Thredbo is an unusual town. It is built on a very steep slope up from the Thredbo River opposite the ski slopes. Real estate prices are some of the highest in the country because space is at a premium. There is very little building space in Australia within walking distance from a downhill skiing resort.
The question arises whether the valley has been over-developed, putting too much strain on the steep slope. The disaster will also give rise to broader questions of how much development should be allowed in the Snowy Mountains not only on safety grounds, but also related environmental ones.
Thredbo is also unusual because it is one of the few places with permanent residents in Australia where snow on the ground is common. Such climates are common elsewhere, but its very uncommon nature in Australia means that any rescue attempts needed there would put an uncommon strain on rescue teams. When combined with the steepness of the terrain, it created special difficulties yesterday. Rescuers had to wait 10 hours before they could begin work, and then it was slow due to the terrain and cold.
This will give rise to questions about the sufficiency of rescue resources in the mountains given the increasing on-snow winter population.
The nature of the landslide was unusual. Typically, landslides occur after unusually high rain or minor earthquakes. These act as a trigger for the land to slip away. But they were not in evidence here. There has been some educated guesswork that human changes could have triggered the landslide — water build up through poor drainage or blocked drains perhaps.
Then there is the question of the Alpine Way road. The top of the landslide was right next to the road. Twenty years ago, a section of the road collapsed in a landslide, causing the village to be cut off. This gives rise to questions about the strength of the road construction; the drainage around the road and the vegetation around the road. Apparently exotic trees, particularly willows, were planted near the road as stabilisers but in recent years there has been action to remove exotics from the park.
Further, the placing of the Alpine Way above the village is now in question. It would be inconvenience, but traffic could go through the base of the valley and the section of the Alpine Way above the village be closed.
On a broader plain the tragedy will make people reflect on the place of humans in nature and that however much we might think we can control our environment, we find incidents which show we are powerless against it or worse that we affect it in ways that cause it to rebound against us.
But as with the tragedy of the failed hospital implosion it is important to ask the questions, to investigate and to change the way we do things in the hope that we avoid a repetition.