First, the third in the sequence of images showing the water level rise. The first was taken by me in late February, the second (on the upper row on the right) is from about a week ago, and the final one was taken in the last few days:
However, this image shows just how much higher the water has to rise before the spillway is reached:
Finally, this image shows ongoing rockfall activity on the landslide scar:
The Mw=7.2 earthquake on the Laguna Salada fault in Mexico on Sunday was certainly sufficiently large and shallow (10 km) to generate landslides, and there are areas of mountains that provide enough relief for slides to develop. To date the number of reports of slides is quite limited, but CNN has this amazing amateur footage of the mountains to the south of Mexicali. The huge dust clouds were almost certainly generated by landslides (see below the fold):
It will certainly be interesting to see what these slides look like on the ground, but given the arid environment shallow rockslides may well be a key component.
I have set up a new (temporary) blog site to provide updates on the state of play at Attabad, based upon the daily monitoring data collected by NDMA and Focus. The URL of the site is as follows:
The site is now live, but is very much work in progress as I have more to add. I aim to update the site, which provides data on seepage, the water level, the spillway level, etc, every couple of days at least.
As I noted yesterday, a new (third) seepage point has appeared on the downstream face of the Attabad landslide dam. A video has been posted on Youtube of the first seepage point. It is worth a view:
Note that water now appears to be flowing into this seepage point under pressure, which is a worry. The volume of water at this seepage point is the largest of the three points. According to Focus the current seepage is:
Location 1: 500 litres per second Location 2: 40 to 55 litres per second Location 3: 15 litres per second
Inflow to the lake is about 29,500 litres per second, so this seepage is not really helping with reducing the rate of filling.
The current rate of rise of the lake level is about 40 cm per day. The freeboard is 35.48 metres. In that context, the reported prediction by the Chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, General Farooq, that the lake would start to spill-over on 17th April is a little perplexing, but to be fair he may well know something that I don't.
The lake level at Attabad continues to rise at a rate of about 35 cm per day. The Pamir Times website has a Youtube video that contains pictures of the latest situation of the site. Whilst it is not in English, the images give a good overview of the current state of play:
From the video I have captured the following image of the state of the water level in the lake. I have then compared it with a photo that I took from a very similar location a month ago. I have circled the large boulder in red to allow comparison between the images. As usual this should be clearer if you click on the image:
Meanwhile the local monitoring team organised by Focus Humanitarian Assistance reports that another seepage point has started on the downstream face of the dam. This means that there are now three points, together releasing about 20 cubic feet per second (just over 0.5 cumecs) of water. Although the overall rate of seepage is not increasing substantively at the moment, this development of flow through the dam is a source of concern that needs to be monitored very carefully.
The mainstream media is reporting a story this morning that breeding toads in Italy apparently relocated from their nests five days before last year's L'aquilla earthquake in Italy. This is picking up on a paper published in the Journal of Zoology today by a team from the Open University.
The paper examines toad numbers at San Ruffino lake, 74 km from the earthquake focus:
The authors observed that on 28th March, 90 male toads (Bufo Bufo) had gathered for the breeding season . However, on 1st April, five days before the event, 96% of the male toads disappeared. This disappearance is reported to coincide with a burst of very low frequency radio wave disturbance of the ionophere, detected by a Russian receiver network. Numbers did not return to near normal levels until 15th April, reportedly two days after the last M>4.5 aftershock.
A Bufo Bufo toad. Similarities in appearance to climate change deniers Nigel Lawson and Christopher Monckton are apparently entirely coincidental. Image from here
There are three things that intrigue me about this report:
Why would toads develop an evolutionary ability to detect earthquake precursors (the Independent article speculates on this below, so I will return to it)? On the whole sitting in a pond of water is probably not a bad place to be in an earthquake, even one with mudslides, especially in a location like this lake, which is not obviously landslide-prone.
The Independent article makes the following statement, quoting Rachel Grant, the Journal author: "Russian scientists suggested that the toads may have been able to detect the release of radioactive radon gas from the ground, or the presence of charged particles in the ionosphere of the night sky, Dr Grant said. If so, it may be an evolved ability to protect the slow-moving animals from the frequent mud slides caused by earthquakes, she added." Hmmmm! For this to be effective the toads would need to know where to go should a mudslide be likely. I am not sure where this would be or how a toad would know.
The toads were located 74 km from the focus of what was a small earthquake. Can toads really detect precursors from this distance, and again why would there be an evolutionary advantage in being able to so-do, given the low probability of a landslide at such a large distance?
None of this undermines the observed behaviour or indeed the observational science of the paper. However, once again the focus is upon the potential for prediction of earthquakes, which is frankly a sideshow, when the real need is to focus on preparedness.
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?
Meanwhile the local monitoring team organised by Focus Humanitarian Assistance reports that another seepage point has started on the downstream face of the dam. This means that there are now three points, together releasing about 20 cubic feet per second (just over 0.5 cumecs) of water. Although the overall rate of seepage is not increasing substantively at the moment, this development of flow through the dam is a source of concern that needs to be monitored very carefully.
A Bufo Bufo toad. Similarities in appearance to climate change deniers Nigel Lawson and Christopher Monckton are apparently entirely coincidental. Image from here
I wonder whether this is technically a landslide, given that it is a mass movement consisting entirely of rock?
