From Charles Sawyer
The goal of gathering data on landslides is to reduce deaths, says Dave Petley (20 October, p 26). While mountaineering in Peru in 1962, I saw a massive vertical slab of rock being undermined by Glacier 511. It could have fallen at any moment, causing a landslide that would obliterate a village.
Our report earned us a front-page headline – translated as “Dantean Slide Threatens Yungay” – in the national newspaper Expreso (27 September, 1962), and a government order to retract it or go to prison. We fled the country.
Eight years later the rock did fall, and the resulting landslide entombed 20,000. Data-gathering is effective only if combined with political expertise.
Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
