LANDSLIDES AND ROCK AVALANCHES 



285 



reached within a stone's throw of where 

 the sightseers were gathered. The peo- 

 ple of the upper village now became 

 mildly alarmed. This first fall came 

 from the east side of the Plattenberg- 

 kopf ; seventeen minutes later a second 

 and larger rock mass crashed downward 

 from the west side. 



The gashes made by the two united 

 below the peak and left its enormous 

 mass isolated and unsupported. Then 

 four minutes later, as if pausing only to 

 catch its breath for the final plunge, 

 those who were watching the mountain 

 from a distance beheld the whole upper 

 portion of the Plattenbergkopf — 10,000- 

 000 cubic meters of rock — suddenly 

 shoot from the hillside. The great mass 

 pitched downward with tremendous ve- 

 locity until it reached the quarry. Then 

 the upper part shot forward horizontally 

 straight across the valley and up the op- 

 posite hill slope. 



A cloud of dust accompanied it and a 

 great wind was flung before it. Trees 

 were blown about like matches and 

 houses lifted through the air like feath- 

 ers and broken up as though little toys 

 by its force alone. 



The avalanche, shooting with incredi- 

 ble swiftness across the valley, struck 

 the opposite hill slope obliquely, and was 

 immediately deflected, like water, down 

 the level and fertile valley floor, which it 

 covered in a few seconds to the distance 

 of nearly a mile and over its whole width 

 with a mass of rock debris 30 feet deep. 



Most of the people who had run up 

 onto the opposite hillside were killed in- 

 stantly. Only when the avalanche had 

 struck this slope and begun to turn aside 

 from it did the people in the lower vil- 

 lage, far down along the level plain, 

 have any suspicion that they were in 

 danger. Twenty seconds later all was 

 over, and the rock torrent had swept 

 away half that village. The sharp edge 

 of the avalanche cut one house in two. 

 All within the fatal edge were destroyed ; 

 all without were saved. One or two 

 men had a race for life and won, but 

 most who were in the path of the de- 

 strover were doomed. 



In brief, 12,000,000 cubic yards of 

 rock fell about 1,500 feet, shot across the 

 valley and up the opposite hillside to a 

 height of over 300 feet, then deflected 

 and poured like a torrent over a hori- 

 zontal plane, covering it uniformly 

 throughout a distance of 5,000 feet and 

 over an area of 1,000,000 square yards, 

 to a depth of from 6 to 65 feet. Before 

 the avalanche there lay a peaceful vil- 

 lage and fertile green fields ; within one 

 minute a solid gray rock carpet had been 

 spread, beneath which rested the remains 

 of 150 human beings, their houses and 

 their fields, while the familiar Platten- 

 bergkopf had vanished and a great hole 

 was in its place. Few were the wounded 

 requiring succor, and few the dead 

 whose bodies could be recovered. 



Those who witnessed the catastrophe 

 from a distance hurried down to look for 

 their friends. One such was Burkhard 

 Rhymer, whose house was untouched at 

 the edge of the debris. He ran to it and 

 found the doors open, a fire burning in 

 the kitchen, the table laid and coffee hot, 

 buc no living soul was left. All had run 

 forth to help or see, and had been over- 

 whelmed — wife, daughter, son, son's 

 wife, and two grandchildren. Such was 

 the rockslide of Elm. ^ 



TIIU GREAT F'R.XXK LANDSLIDE! 



Only slightly less dramatic and quite 

 similar in character to the Elm rockslide, 

 was the one which partially swept the 

 town of Frank, Alberta. By a hair's 

 breadth only did the community escape 

 complete annihilation. This slide was of 

 much greater magnitude than the Elm 

 disaster, although not so many people 

 were killed. 



Turtle Mountain, the scene of the ava- 

 lanche, is a lofty, narrow ridge situated 

 about 14 miles east of the Continental 

 Divide, and is surmounted by a number 

 of rocky peaks. The range is pierced, 

 north of Turtle Mountain, by a narrow 

 gap, through which flows Old I\Ian 

 River. Near the gap, and where the val- 

 ley is broadened by the debouchment of 

 Gold Creek, and close to the foot of the 

 mountain, nestles the town of Frank, an 



