The location of the Italian train crash landslide

Thanks to David Bressan of the Cryology and Co blog for help in identifying the location of the landslide in Italy today that derailed a train, killing at least nine passengers.  The location is (48.632N, 10.882E) is shown on this Google Earth image:

 The landslide was small - only 400 cubic metres - but it doesn't take much to derail a train if it happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place, as this Il Giornale image of the slide shows:

Images of the Italian railway landslide today

A landslide (frana in Italian) occurred this morning at Merano, near to Bolzano in northern Italy, striking a train that was derailed.  Reports suggest that 11 9 people were killed and a further 30 were injured.  This is a Google Earth image of Merano with a railway line marked in black, but I am not sure where the accident occurred or even if it is in this image.

Il Giornale has some images of the accident site:

From the look of these images, this appears to be a shallow failure from a slope above a retaining wall.  Early suggestions are that the landslide was triggered by a leaking irrigation pipe, which saturated the soil, triggering failure.  Clearly that is just conjecture at this point.

This type of landslide-induced rail accident occurs occasionally.  I am reminded of this one in China in July last year.

The location of the Morro do Bumba landslide in Niteroi, Brazil

Thanks to a video posted on the BBC website, I have managed to locate the Niteroi landslide, which is a garbage dump slide that is believed to have killed over 200 people.  The slide is at the following coordinates:  22.893° S, -43.085°W

On a Google Earth image this area looks like this:

 A zoomed in view looks like this (the crown of the landslide is at the bottom of the image):

Thus, a perspective view of the landslide looks like this (looking from the toe towards the crown):

It is clear that a large number of houses have been destroyed.  Google Earth measurements suggest that the slide is about 300 metres long and 50-70 metres wide.    It is interesting that most of the crown appears to be located at a road (see the screenshot from the video below) - which might suggest that drainage was an issue in the causation of the failure:

The description of the slide as an old garbage dump is certainly correct judging by this image from O Globo:

The likelihood of surviving burial in a garbage landslide is very low given the density of the material, the release of methane gas and in some cases the release of heat from the decaying material - see my earlier post here on the hazards posed by garbage dump landslides.  Needless to say the recovery and clean up operation will be both very difficult and very unpleasant for those involved.

Latest Update on the Attabad landslide

Whilst my Hunza Landslide Monitoring website is the main location for the monitoring data of the landslide at Attabad, I will continue to put updates here every few days.  The current situation is that the lake level continues to rise at 30 to 40 cm per day.  This is perhaps slightly lower than expected as temperatures in this region remain unseasonably cold, meaning that snowmelt (and thus inflow) has been delayed.  Based upon the current rate of rise of the lake level and downcutting of the channel, the water should reach the spillway in two to three months.  This may shorten if the rate of inflow increases.

This graph shows the water level through time and the level of the spillway, based upon NDMA and Focus data:

Meanwhile, this one shows the rate of seepage at the three points plus the overall rate.  It is clear that the seepage rate has stabilised over the last few days:

Stop Press: Over 200 people buried in last night's landslide in Niteroi, Brazil?

AP is reporting that over 200 people have been buried in last night's landslide in Niteroi, Brazil:

"A top Rio de Janeiro state security official says at least 200 people have been buried in the latest landslide to hit the area. Civil Defense subsecretary Pedro Machado tells Globo television that the slide plowed into a slum in the city of Niteroi. Machado said Thursday that anyone there at the time was likely killed instantly."

O Globo's report also confirms that the landslide did occur on an old garbage dump, which was abandoned in 1986.

If over 50 houses were struck by this slide in the middle of the night a death toll of this order is certainly possible.

Another major landslide in the Rio de Janeiro area of Brazil

 O Globo in Brazil is reporting that another large landslide (in Portuguese "deslizamento de terra" for those looking the original website) struck the Niteroi area overnight, burying up to 50 houses, following the multiple slides yesterday.  The slide (shown below in an image from O Globo) occurred at Viçoso Jardim, in the Niteroi suburb of Cubango.  At least five people have been killed, with an unknown number of people missing.  The site is reportedly an old garbage dump that has subsequently been occupied by illegal dwellings.

Overall the toll from this multiple landslide disaster is very high.  To date the confirmed number of fatalities is 150, with 135 people injured and 40 or so still missing.  The Civil Defense agency is reporting 806 rainfall induced events, most of them landslides of various types. The reader-led O Globo map of the distribution of the events is a fantastic resource.  Hopefully it will be visible here:


Visualizar O mapa da devastação no Rio em um mapa maior


The landslides vary in size and nature considerably, but some are quite large, as this AP image shows:

Widespread landslides in Rio de Janeiro and Niteroi in Brazil

Over the last few days the city of Rio de Janeiro, and its twin city Niteroi just across the water, have been affected by extremely intense rainfall - a reported 288 mm in 24 hours.  The upshot has been a series of flash floods and landslides that have killed over 100 people so far.  More heavy rain is expected today.

O Globo has produced an interactive map of the Rio and Niteroi regions in which readers are invited to add information about their area.  This gives a first order estimate of the impacts of the rainfall:

Alagamento = flooding;
Lixo, lama e avores = garbage, mud and trees
Deslizamento = landslide
Postos de deocoes = Donation stations

It appears that many of the slides have affected the shanty towns constructed on the hillsides around the cities.  Over the next few days I will try to collate a list of the major fatality inducing landslides, but for now
O Globo has these two images of landslides that have affected residential areas:

Strangely, it is often a slightly abstract image that captures the horror of the event.  O Globo also has this exceptionally powerful photograph:

Finally, it is interesting to note that this rainfall event appears not to have been captured by the TRMM landslide warning system:

24 hours of rainfall (the yellow circles indicate those areas considered to be at risk of landslides):

72 hours of rainfall (the yellow circles indicate those areas considered to be at risk of landslides):

More later.