There's about 3 sections like this in TR (2013). In the rest of the game, any hazards seen on screen are mostly dangerous. I always thought that the extra 'hazard' visuals and noisy audio were there to disorientate the player (along with a bit of shaky-cam) in the hope they'd mis-step the climbing/running/jumping, and thus increase the difficulty.

For skilled gamers (which I am most definitely not) I can see how this 'cheat' is annoying, but for me, who isn't the best at precision movement in 3D games, I found it helped me immensely during these types of sections to simply turn off the sound.