Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockcliff said it was “ridiculous” and “stupid” that a group of hikers had to be rescued from kunanyi/Mt Wellington on Monday afternoon amid a temperature that felt like -21.6C
A group of 13 hikers stuck on a hard-to-reach section of the mountain called emergency services at 4.15pm on Monday. The group set out on a day hike, having brought mobile phones but minimal food and water, and no equipment to spend the night in case of an emergency.
On the way down, at 1,100m altitude, the group, assisted by City of Hobart personnel, met another five hikers who police say were similarly unprepared, according to a statement from Tasmania police.
The temperature dropped to -3C on the mountain on Monday night, with a feels-like temperature in the wind of -21.6C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, with heavy snowfall and wind gusts up to 109km/h.
Insp Darren Latham said it was incredibly frustrating police were forced to repeat the same warnings – especially during a severe weather event.
“The Bureau of Meteorology, the SES and Tasmania Police have been issuing warnings to the community regarding the severe weather event since last week. This included several bushwalker weather alerts,” he said.
“Bushwalkers should always prepare for the worst. Our emergency service personnel often put their own lives at risk during rescues, so it is frustrating when the situation could have been avoided,” he said.
The City of Hobart chief executive, Michael Stretton, said there was no guarantee stranded walkers could be rescued, so visiting the mountain in extreme weather conditions was highly risky.
“We can’t guarantee that we’ll always be able to rescue stranded walkers so visiting the mountain in these extreme weather conditions comes with high risk,” Stretton said.
Tasmania police Insp Kathy Bennet told ABC Radio Hobart the bushwalkers were endangering lives.
“Quite frankly, I’m gobsmacked that someone would think that it is OK to go wandering up the mountain on a day like yesterday,” she said.
“That potentially put other lives at risk because we had our search and rescue people up at New Norfolk, with the anticipated issues we had up there [for flooding response] … and we would have to think about redeploying resources to get people.
“If the road’s closed don’t walk up there, it’s as simple as that.
“Snow and low clouds are not good walking conditions especially when you have three children involved on the walk, which is what there was.”
Rockliff described the situation as “simply ridiculous” at a press conference on Tuesday.
“We cannot afford to have any resources diverted simply because of people’s stupidity of not heeding those warnings,” Rockliff said.
“Thankfully, local government supported that rescue when our SES personnel and others were out supporting other communities.”
