Do trees falling make a sound?

My friends in Penang were inconvenienced over the weekend by a landslide which blocked a principal road they often use. There were several other landslides in the state brought on by the continuous rain over the past few days. These incidents bring to mind an old philosophical question: does a tree falling deep in the forest make a sound if nobody hears it?

The response from some of the affected residents is classic. As reported in the Star “Landslides in Penang being cleared”, September 8, 2008), one of them managed to highlight the idiocy of living next to hills in two concise sentences:
“Lee Wai Tuck, 46, said landslides in their area were common. He said he was shocked to see his backyard covered with mud and rocks right up to his back door.”

Now, if I were living in an area where landslides were common, it wouldn’t at all surprise me if an abundance of mud and rocks were to appear suddenly in my living room. Moreover, I wouldn’t be looking to point fingers.

Penang’s Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, on visiting the residents said the Government would identify the ownership of the hilly area. “If it is privately owned, the state will ask the owners to do remedial work”.

However in Selangor, vocal critics aligned with Lim’s Pakatan Rakyat (“PR”) party colleagues are doing everything they possibly can to ensure no works take place on hillslopes, even if those slopes need stabilizing. One of PR’s more famous MP’s, a certain R. Sivarasa (defender of alleged Malaysian sodomists), reportedly ran around earlier this year vapidly and repeatedly saying “Not one cangkul in the ground” in seeking to publicize his efforts on behalf of various residents living around Gasing Hill. (For you non-Malaysians, a cangkul is akin to a spade. This is actually a great study of hypocritical owners telling other owners why the former should have the right to live dangerously but not the latter. More on this another day).

Another interesting case study which I've ben tracking is the hillside project called Damansara21 where work has been halted as the result of complaints by its neighbours: the owner, Selangor Dredging Berhad, is in a Catch-22 situation: do works, risk landslides and be condemned; don’t do works, risk landslides and be condemned.

I’ve been told, and it makes sense to me, that just as trees fall naturally without human interference, landslides also occur naturally without human interference. The residents living on and around hillslopes voluntarily choose to do so with this knowledge and should move out if they are concerned about landslides. However Malaysians, being what we are, are clearly capable of building our houses on sand without foundations and then scratching our head in wonder when the rains come.