A Calgary-based engineering team has developed an award-winning system for monitoring rockslide hazards that could save lives and minimize damage to transport routes and homes.

Each year, rockslides and mudslides cause costly closures of highways and railways in areas across the country and pose a danger to many Canadians.

Residents in southwest Alberta know to keep an eye on Turtle Mountain after a rockslide 103 years ago buried the town of Frank, killing 70 people. The mountain's south peak is still standing high above the town of Hillcrest and is expected to crumble, but no one knows when.

"As a province, we need to know when something is going to happen and prepare for that and respond," Corey Froese of the Alberta Geological Survey told CBC News.

20 to 30 minutes' warning

The AGS paid more than $1 million for monitoring technology that would provide as much warning as possible. Starting two years ago, the team installed a system of sensors to monitor micron-sized movement on the surface and deep inside the mountain.

The team had to work year-round atop the 2,200-metre mountain, braving both extreme cold and summer heat waves.

Andrew Bidwell of the engineering firm AMEC said all the instruments are automated to take readings at set-time intervals and transmit them to the base of the mountain in real time, giving officials 20 to 30 minutes' warning before a potential slide.

"In the past, somebody would have had to go up to the site to manually read the instruments," Bidwell told CBC News.

International attention

The system has garnered international interest from countries such as Norway, which has numerous concerns over rockslides in the fjords of the country's west coast.

"They've done models where once these slides hit the water in the fjord, the tsunamis generated by these slides could kill thousands of people," Froese said.

The system recently won the 2006 Canadian Consulting Engineers Award of Excellence, considered Canada's top engineering award.

"We're proud to have won the award and it's judged by our peers as well, so that's special to us," Bidwell said.