21 January 2013

First reports of a large landslide on Mount Cook in New Zealand

Posted by Dave Petley

Several newspapers are reporting that a large landslide occurred today on the flanks of Mount Cook.  The best report is in The Press, which has an image (below) and a description of the landslide:

“A Department of Conservation spokeswoman from the Mt Cook office said the rockslide happened just after 2.30pm today.  “It’s quite massive and I think it has left a scar on the mountain. I haven’t heard of one this big before; not since the one in December 1991.” Rocks fell more than 600 metres down the mountain, she said. She said 13 people were staying at the nearby Plateau Hut, but nobody was injured.”

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Hopefully some better images of this will emerge tomorrow.  This appears to be a rock avalanche with quite a large fall height, not unlike (but smaller than)  the 1991 event on the same mountain.