International Symposium on Mitigative Measures against Snow ...

<strong>International</strong> <strong>Symposium</strong> on Mitigative Measures against Snow Avalanches
Egilsstaðir, Iceland, March 11–14, 2008
This presentation gives a brief description of the local civil defence management during the
first week after the accidents at Súðavík and Flateyri. The presentation will also touch upon
the human factor involved with the rescue operations based on the author’s experience of the
disasters at Súðavík and Flateyri in 1995.
SÚÐAVÍK
The accident at Súðavík may be summarised as follows:
• The avalanche overran or touched 25 houses with 63 people. Of those 14 died and 10
were injured.
• The estimated volume of the snow in the avalanche deposit was 150 to 200 thousand
cubic meters or around 60 to 80 thousand metric tons.
• First measures were to save lives and then to attend to properties and make sure that
safety of rescuers was taken care of.
• Last person to be found alive was rescued almost 24 hours after the avalanche fell.
Figure 1 A house damaged by the avalanche at Súðavík on 16 January 1995.
Additional information:
• A storm in December 1994, which also caused avalanches, had left a very slippery
surface in the mountains. Very high winds and a lot of precipitation led to an
enormous accumulation of snow in the starting zones of avalanches.
• The wind direction before the avalanche fell was between northerly and
northwesterly with snow drifting over the edge of the mountain and into a depression
in the cliffs.
• It is considered likely that the main accumulation of snow in the starting zone started
six hours prior to the event after the wind direction became more westerly.
• The initial starting zone may have been about 200 meters wide and once the
avalanche came down below the cliffs it released a 400 m wide area in a secondary
starting zone.
• When researchers got up to the starting zone, all signs of the outbreak of the
avalanche had disappeared.
98 The avalanches at Súðavík and Flateyri in 1995