Fifteen years after a coroner's report recommended establishing landslide risk tolerance levels, British Columbia has yet to implement them. The report, following the 2005 death of Eliza Wing Mun Kuttner in a landslide, highlighted the predictability and preventability of landslides in the Berkley-Riverside area. The report suggested adopting risk tolerance levels similar to those used in Hong Kong and Australia, which set specific death rates per year for new and existing developments. The B.C. government has not responded to questions regarding the implementation of these recommendations.
More than 15 years after a coroner’s investigation recommended that British Columbia establish landslide risk tolerance levels for existing homes and future developments, the province has not done so. The recommendation, one of eight to the province from the coroner’s report, was made after an examination of the death of 43-year-old Eliza Wing Mun Kuttner in a landslide on January 19, 2005, that carried a District of North Vancouver home down a steep slope at 3:30 a.m.
Coroner Tom Pawlowski’s 2008 report found that potential landslides in the Berkley-Riverside area in the District of North Vancouver were both predictable and preventable, but the perception that there was an unacceptable risk was not recognized by government or the residents of the area. Creating landslide risk tolerance levels, also called landslide safety levels, would help communities and experts determine whether, for example, it is safe to build along steep slope areas or where there are creeks, and whether changes are needed to protect existing homes. The coroner’s report noted that both Hong Kong and Australia used landslide safety levels. In those regions, for example, the landslide risk tolerance level is set at one death in 100,000 per year for new development and one in 10,000 for existing development. The risk tolerance levels allow experts to run calculations to determine whether a development in a particular area would meet the safety level or how to mitigate risks in homes that have already been built. The B.C. government did not respond to Postmedia questions put to them about why the province had not adopted the landslide safety levels or how it had responded to the eight coroner’s recommendations. Concerns about landslide and debris flow risks were reignited this month after a mudslide swept through a home in Lions Bay along the Sea to Sky Highway corridor, killing two people. Scott McDougall, a University of B.C
Landslides BRITISH COLUMBIA CORONER's REPORT SAFETY LEVELS RISK TOLERANCE
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