Catching up - recent landslide events

The next few posts will be an attempt to catch up on the things that I missed whilst on vacation in Switzerland last week.  Thanks to the many people who have tipped me off about landslide events.  I will cover Pakistan in another post.


1. A large flow in Austria
Thanks to Martin Springer for highlighting this one.  On Saturday 21st August a severe storm triggered a 100,000 cubic metre flow in the Karwendel Nature Reserve.  Fortunately no-one was killed, but a dozen cars are trapped in a car park.  It will take two months to clear the debris.  There is a short video of the deposit and further details about the landslide (in German) here.

Read more by clicking below:



2. The power of a mudflow illustrated by an articulated truck in California
Thanks to Lisa Denke for this one.  A large storm in eastern California on Thursday last week triggered a mudflow in the Owens Valley in eastern California.  An articulated truck (known as a tractor trailer in the US) was caught in the path.  There is a short but useful video of the event in this news report:



3.An excavator in Gilgit-Baltistan
Accompanying the video above is an extraordinary image of the aftermath of the rains in Pakistan, courtesy of the Pamir Times:

I am reminded of the old "how does the driver of a snowplough get to work?" line.


4. Devastating landslides in Turkey
Also on Thursday last week, heavy rainfall triggered landslides in the town of Gundogdu, in Rize Province in Turkey, killing 12 people.  The image below is taken from this news report:

5. The typhoon season has now got started
Finally, the very slow start to the Pacific typhoon season has now come to an end, with a series of storms developing at the moment.  The three storms currently active all have the potential to cause landslides (image from Tropical Storm Risk):

Lionrock and Namthuen could both bring very heavy rainfall to southern China as they track inland over the next couple of days.  Meanwhile, the forecast track of Typhoon Kompasu suggests that this very intense typhoon could bring substantial amounts of rainfall to the Korean peninsular.  North Korean in particular is very vulnerable to the effects of heavy rainfall due to the extensive deforestation endemic in that country.  The potential impacts of this storm are serious, although note that there is considerable uncertainty in track forecasts.

The Sichuan landslide - location information

Thanks to Mauri McSaveney for doing the detective work to track down the location of this slide.  The village in question is located at 29.320 N, 102.726E (put the following into Google Maps: 29.319631, 102.725816).  This is the pre-landslide perspective image from Google Earth:

Meanhile Xinhua has a new set of images, of which these two are the best:

The community on the right of the second image was very fortunate, given that the flow bifurcated above it.  A perspective Google Earth view from a similar position to the second photo above, but before the slide, is quite interesting:

The village that has been hit by this landslide looks to be quite new - maybe associated with the construction of the reservoir (that is speculation at this stage).  IF that is the case, then questions will need to be asked as to how this location was chosen when even the most cursory examination of the slope above suggests that it is in a poor state.

I do however maintain that is the final loss of life is 21, as is currently reported, then the fatality count is surprisingly low for such an event.  That is not to belittle the loss of 21 people - that is clearly a tragedy - but given the timing and the magnitude of the damage this seems remarkably low.

Updated: An astonishing landslide this morning in China

Updated: two new images of the site at the end of the post

An extraordinary landslide occurred this morning in Hanyuan County, Sichuan Province, leaving 21 people missing and 58 houses damaged or destroyed.  English People's Daily and Xinhua have some images of the landslide:

The slide, which occurred at 5 am this morning, is estimated to have had a volume of 100,000 cubic metres (although I suspect that it may be larger than this).  It came from Ermanshan Mountain and struck Shuanghe Village at the toe.  The level of destruction looks to be very serious.  Given the time of the landslide (when most people will be at home and asleep, and it would have been dark or just starting to get light), a fatality count of 21 persons would be surprisingly low in my view.


The location of Hanyuan County in the Geonames Search Engine is shown in the Google Earth image below:

Updated: this Chinese language website has some more images:

Is a lavafall a landslide?

The Mountain Cat Geology blog has an astonishing image of a lavafall in Iceland following the recent eruption (click on the image for a better view in a new window):

I wonder whether this is technically a landslide, given that it is a mass movement consisting entirely of rock?

Overview photo of the Bandung landslide

The Jakarta Post has an overview image of the Bandung landslide:

Massive landslide in West Java, Indonesia

A large landslide occurred yesterday in the Dewata tea plantation area in Pasir Jambu, Southern Bandung in West Java, Indonesia, burying the accommodation for temporary plantation workers. It is estimated that 70 people were buried by the slide. This image, from AP, appears to show the head of the landslide, which looks to be a large but comparatively shallow flow type failure in regolith:


The toe of the slide, including some of the impacted buildings, is shown in this AP image:


News reports suggest that to date 7 bodies have been recovered from the debris, with rescue operations continuing amongst heavy rainfall, which must place the workers at considerable personal risk.

Java consistently appears in the landslide database with very high fatal landslide occurrence. Tea plantations are also areas of high landslide hazard.

More images of the earthquake-triggered landslides in Sumatra

I thought it would be useful to provide a compilation of images of the landslides triggered by the Sumatra earthquake. ReliefWeb is reporting that over 1000 landslides were triggered: "Landslides have hindered relief efforts in some areas. The West Sumatra Satkorlak reported at least 1,000 landslide spots in Gunung Tigo highlands, located between Padang Pariaman and Agam districts. Six helicopters carrying food and medical supplies were dispatched to the highlands as landslides blocked roads." Interestingly, the landslides appear to be highly mobile, (comparatively but not very) shallow flows in deeply weathered soils. They have run out over quite large distances and in some of the images there appears to be large amounts of water present.

From here, "A highway is severely damaged by a landslide after an earthquake occured near the Padang Alai village area in Pariaman, West Sumatra province"
From Reuters, "A motorbike is covered in mud after it was unearthed in the earthquake ravaged village of Tandikat, Indonesia's West Sumatra province October 6, 2009".


From Reuters, "An aerial view of a village hit by a landslide which occurred when an earthquake hit the area in Pariaman district, West Sumatra province October 6, 2009."


From Reuters, "An aerial view of villages hit by a landslide which occurred when an earthquake hit the area in Pariaman district, West Sumatra province October 6, 2009."


From Reuters, "An aerial view of villages hit by a landslide which occurred when an earthquake hit the area in Pariaman district, West Sumatra province October 6, 2009."

From Reuters, "Indonesian soldiers and police search victims buried after a quake-triggered landslide in Jumanak in Padang Pariaman district, Indonesia, Monday, Oct. 5, 2009."

From Reuters, "An aerial view of the damage after a landslide caused by a powerful earthquake in Limo Koto Timur village in Padang , Indonesia's West Sumatra province, October 4, 2009."