VIDEO: New Zealand crews create epic avalanche with explosives

New Zealand transportation crews used explosives to cause an avalanche and prevent an unplanned one. See the view from above. 

SOUTHLAND, New Zealand – Not all avalanches are created equally. Some are made intentionally, with controlled explosives, like a recent avalanche in Southland, New Zealand, set off to avoid an unplanned event.

According to the New Zealand Transport Agency, crews triggered the avalanche above State Highway 94 in Southland using controlled explosives. As a planned avalanche, teams took to the sky and recorded the moment the powerful wall of snow came crashing down.

“Avalanches can seriously affect this part of SH94 (the road connecting Te Anau and Milford Sound),” the agency said. “We trigger avalanches in winter when there’s a high risk of an avalanche above SH94.”

Before the explosion, the road was closed and not reopened until crews cleared the area.

A triggered avalanche in the Southland region of New Zealand on Highway 94.

(NZ Transport Agency  / FOX Weather)

According to the Transport Agency, until the late 1970s, State Highway 94 was closed all winter due to the avalanche risk. After the avalanche control program was established in the early 1980s, the road was open all year. 

The Milford Road Alliance, between the New Zealand Transport Agency and Downer, use weather and avalanche monitoring stations to predict avalanches, helping to plan controlled explosions and release avalanches. 

The video above shows an avalanche on the west side of the Homer Tunnel, known as Avalanche Creek, according to the department.

According to the New Zealand Avalanche Advisory, high avalanche danger is ongoing north of Southland in Mount Aspiring National Park and considerable danger in Fiordland along Highway 94.