Natal British Columbia Slide

Scope and Content: Photographs of destruction caused by a rock and mud slide which covered a section of Highway 3 just west of Natal, B.C. killing two people. The slide covered a thousand yard stretch of the highway. The couple was believed to be from Vancouver and were working in the Natal area. The rock and mud …

Scope and Content: Photographs of destruction caused by a rock and mud slide which covered a section of Highway 3 just west of Natal, B.C. killing two people. The slide covered a thousand yard stretch of the highway. The couple was believed to be from Vancouver and were working in the Natal area. The rock and mud cascaded from atop Sparwood Ridge about 11:30 a.m. November 23. Bulldozers started at each end of the slide pushing the debris to within the grasp of front end loaders which dumped the rumble into heavy-duty mining trucks owned by the Kaiser Coal Corp. The slide rubble was reported to be overburden—stripped rock and soil from Kaiser’s mining operations on the top of the ridge. The waste had been accumulating on the mountainside for at least two years.