Problems at the Hattian Bala landslide dam in Pakistan

The largest landslide in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at Hattian, 25 km or so from Muzaffarabad:


My colleagues and I wrote a paper on this landslide a few years ago (you can download the pdf here). It was notable for the fact that it blocked the valley - in the aftermath the Pakistan Army built a spillway to ensure that uncontrolled overtopping did not occur. The landslide has been stable since, although many of us have warned that this area is far from out of the woods, with the first really intense precipitation event being a key test.

In the last few days this area has suffered a very heavy rain and snowfall event - as in fact has a vast area of the Himalayan Arc - indeed I have never seen a 1 day TRMM landslide potential map like this - it is quite bizarre:

Late tonight, media sources in Pakistan are suggesting that the lake has broken its banks, flooding 23 houses. So far the dam is holding, but clearly this event will ask substantial questions of it. Hopefully, the spillway engineers have got this right!

Elsewhere in the Muzaffarabad area, heavy rain is reported to have triggered many landslides. I have not yet seen any reports of the situation at Attabad, but this is not likely to be helping.

The damage caused by landslides during earthquakes

Below is the presentation file of the keynote lecture that I gave today at the Chilean Geological Congress in Santiago. I have removed a few of the figures as they have not yet been published.

You should be able to download and to view the file below:

Damage caused by earthquake landslides

See more presentations by Dr_Dave | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

The powerpoint file is hosted on Authorstream, which also holds many more of my presentations here:

http://www.authorstream.com/user-presentations/Dr_Dave/

8th October 2008 - two important dates

The third anniversary of the Kashmir Earthquake
Today is the third anniversary of the Kashmir earthquake disaster, in which over 79,000 people were killed. Of these, about a third (i.e. about 26,000) were killed either directly or indirectly by landslides. To mark the occasion, the images below, which I took in January 2006, show some of the slope failures that occurred.

Whilst Pakistan has undoubtedly put a great deal of effort into earthquake reconstruction, hardship is still the norm in the earthquake affected areas. The two major towns, Muzaffarabad and Balakot are still only partially rebuilt, whilst many of the outlying villages are in an even more desperate state. Over 2000 people still live in refugee camps as a result of losing their land and properties to landslides and disruption to the road network from failures is still a daily occurrence.

Photo 1: Shallow rockslides on the road from Muzaffarabad up the Neelum Valley. Note the complete destruction of the village in the foreground.

Photo 2: Landslides on a main road close to Muzaffarabad. The bravery of the bulldozer drivers was and is incredible.

Photo 3: Houses on an active landslide near to Hattian Bazaar. The cracks are the result of movement of the slope in the earthquake. Note that the large house is in a graben feature (i.e. on a block that has dropped down as a result of the landslide movement). This has cause the house to crack, but as the washing shows it was still inhabited. Note that rebuilding is occurring in this incredibly dangerous location.

Photo 4: A collapsed terrace in Hattian Bala. When the terrace collapsed the buildings on the edge fell into the river, killing the occupants.

An irony: the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction
The second Wednesday in October (i.e, today) is designated by the United Nations as the The International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. Worldwide activities today are focused on raising public awareness, and thus preparedness, for natural disasters. Yesterday, the Secretary General of the United Nations urged greater investment in disaster preparedness. Today in which the UK government has agreed to plough yet another £50 billion to prop up the banks for their earlier follies. Just to put that into context - in the aftermath of the Kashmir earthquake, which made over 3.3 million people homeless, the International Community donated a grand total of $5.8 billion (£3.3 billion) - i.e. 6.6% of the amount that the UK government has today invested in the banks, not even counting the £450 billion that has been made available as loans to the banks.