Highway Slope Manual

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9. LANDSLIDE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
9.1 EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
Road owners or their maintenance agents should have an adequate emergency system
in place that would enable an organised and timely response to landslides that affect their
roads (see Figure 1.1). They should be aware of the Hong Kong SAR Government's
emergency system for responding to natural disasters including landslides. A brief
introduction on this and the available sources of information are given in Appendix E.
During an emergency, it is essential to have accurate and timely information about the
landslide sites and rainfall data (e.g. rainfall information via Hong Kong Observatory's
website http://www.info.gov.hk/hko) to ensure a speedy and appropriate response. Road
owners or their maintenance agents should maintain and keep up-to-date an effective
information system containing sufficient information on their slopes. The use of modern
information and telecommunication technology can greatly facilitate retrieval and
transmission of critical information during emergency operations.
Under the emergency system, the road owner or his maintenance agent should have
maintenance staff on call 24 hours a day who can be mobilised at short notice throughout the
year. Sufficient staff and contractor resources, as well as plant and equipment, should be
available at times of emergency. The operation of the system should be documented with
clear procedures (including when to seek advice from a geotechnical engineer), and the duties
and responsibilities of all the personnel involved should be clearly defined. A contingency
plan should be in place to deploy staff and resources, and to maintain effective
communication with various Government Departments during extreme disaster events.
The emergency system should allow early identification and inspection of serious
landslide incidents and enable urgent remedial actions to be taken to ensure public safety.
Landslides affecting critical roads should be adequately and speedily dealt with as prolonged
traffic disruption may have serious socio-economic consequences. There should be a
designated authority for assigning resources and priority for inspection and urgent repairs, and
for providing information to the media.
For road sections of strategic importance, including the sole access to critical facilities
such as hospitals and fire stations, the road owners and/or relevant authorities should liaise
with various Government Departments. They should have contingency plans in place to
cover possible scenarios such as quick diversion of traffic, re-opening of the roads and
restoration of the critical services. Such road sections and the critical facility owners should
be pre-identified, and the contingency plans should be documented.
Adequate and suitable training should be provided to all staff who are involved in the
system. In particular, staff who would be involved in landslide inspection should be given
training on classification of the seriousness of the incident, the immediate actions to be taken,
accurate reporting of factual information and answering media enquiries. Pre-wet season
briefings and drills are particularly valuable, especially for new staff.
The emergency system should be reviewed after each wet season and, where possible,