Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: road clo­sed

A lands­li­de from Pla­tå­ber­get crossed the road near the ceme­tery in Lon­gye­ar­by­en a few days ago. Nobo­dy was inju­red and the event was not seen by anyo­ne, as far as known, but the road from the old muse­um to Huset has been clo­sed by the Sys­sel­man­nen for safe­ty reasons until fur­ther noti­ce.

It is not the first lands­li­de in this area. Pre­vious events had trig­ge­red a deba­te to move the ceme­tery to a safer loca­ti­on near the church to pre­vent it from pos­si­ble dama­ge, but no decis­i­ons have been made so far.

Smal­ler lands­li­des as the recent one are gene­ral­ly a com­mon and well-known phe­no­me­non on slo­pes like the one near the ceme­tery. They may occur any­whe­re on simi­lar slo­pes in the field, espe­ci­al­ly in the ear­ly sum­mer, after the snow mel­ting peri­od. Lands­li­des of this type are nor­mal­ly not too fast, so hikers should be able to move away and into safe ter­ri­to­ry wit­hout dif­fi­cul­ties. But the dan­ger poten­ti­al has to be con­side­red for exam­p­le when put­ting up a tent, and the­re are other types of lands­li­des and mud­flows that invol­ve more water and hig­her velo­ci­ties. In June 1992, a sci­en­tist was kil­led by a tor­ren­ti­al slush ava­lan­che in Lief­defjord.

Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en near the ceme­tery. Image © Alex­an­der Lembke.

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