Case Study of the 1997 Landslide in Thredbo, New South Wales, Australia

On July 30, 1997, the Bimbadeen and Carinya Lodges collapsed at Thredbo Alpine Village in Australia's New South Wales. An astonishing 3,500 tons of debris came crashing down the slope and trapped 100 people. The Thredbo landslide was a catastrophic landslide that occurred at the village and ski resort of Thredbo, New South Wales, Australia.

Consequences

The landslide resulted in the deaths of 18 people. After the disaster, the State Government of New South Wales spent $40 million in settlements with 91 businesses and individuals.

Citizen Response

Volunteers from the Volunteer Specialist Association and Australian Red Cross were on the scene, assisting with the rescue effort.

Government Response

The police arrived soon and evacuated the area after declaring a regional disaster. Goulburn was established as a disaster coordination center while medical staff were sent from Cooma and Canberra. The St. George Hospital in Sydney, Australia als so four specialists. A total of 100 professional services such as State Emergency Service of New South Wales and the Australian Red Cross were on the scene.

By the next morning, a medical command post was established near the scene. Geophysicists who arrived from Sydney declared that excavation of the top layers would be saved. Another team of medical specialists arrived that evening from the Royal North Shore Hospital. The rescue effort was made more difficult by the increasingly colder temperature (-14 °C or 7 °F during the night). After more than a day of digging, they discovered Stuart Diver and rescued him after he had been trapped for 65 hours between two slabs of concrete in the blistering cold.

Sources Consulted

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