An analysis of fatal landslides in the Asia-Pacific region for 2006 to 2008

In my last post I published two maps of fatal landslide occurrence in the years 2006 to 2008 inclusive, based upon my long term fatal landslide database. In this post I focus on the Asia Pacific region. This analysis does not include seismically-induced landslides, most notably the Wenchuan (Sichuan) earthquake, which triggered a large number of slides, killing over 20,000 people.

The basic statistics of the data are in the table below - as per usual you can get a better version of the table and figures by clicking on the image:

In total, I recorded 796 fatal landslides (note that in this context I use landslides generically to include all non-avalanche mass movements, including rockfalls) in which 9941 people were killed. In terms of fatalities, the Philippines ranks highest (Fig. 1), although India is the country with the most fatal landslides (Fig. 2). Of course if the Wenchuan earthquake were included China would be the top of both lists

Fig. 1: The number of recorded fatalities organised by country

Fig. 2: The number of recorded fatal landslides organised by country

The seasonality of landslide occurrence varies greatly within this area. In South Asia there is a very strong influence from the S. Asian monsoon, which is very apparent in the monthly data (note that for these three graphs I have used the same y-axis scales so that they are directly comparable):

Fig. 3: Monthly recorded fatal landslide occurrence (line graph) and loss of life (bar graph) for South Asia

In East Asia there is also a very strong seasonal signal, but note that here there is a more distinct peak in July and a decline thereafter (Fig. 4):

Fig. 4: Monthly recorded fatal landslide occurrence (line graph) and loss of life (bar graph) for East Asia

In South-East Asia there is no strong seasonal signal - this is unsurprising in an area that is mostly tropical. Two distinct peaks do occur, one in February and one in November.Fig. 5: Monthly recorded fatal landslide occurrence (line graph) and loss of life (bar graph) for South-East Asia

As with yesterday's post, I have no problem with this information being used elsewhere, but please reference the figures and information as follows:

Petley, D.N. 2010. An analysis of fatal landslides in the Asia-Pacific region for 2006 to 2008. Dave's Landslide Blog URL: http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/analysis-of-fatal-landslides-in-asia.html