8 November 2008

Recent landslide updates

Posted by Dave Petley

A few updates on landslide events over the last few days:
1. Highway 97: various newspapers now report that the teams trying to stop the movement of the slope are making headway. The rate of movement has now slowed to about 8 mm per day (half of the rates measured early in the crisis). The drilling and blasting crews have now moved 5,000 cubic metres per day from the crown to the toe of the slope. There are hopes that the road might be reopened within a week.
2. Pitrap, Poot District, Kenya: Two landslides struck this small village on 7th November, killing a total of eleven people, most of whom were women and girls who had gathered to celebrate the birth of a child. Heavy rain was the trigger.
3. Landslides in Yunnan Province, China. Xinhua has now published some images of the landslides in China last week that left at least 83 killed or missing:

Xinhua image of Dasongshu Village of Xishelu Township in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture

Xinhua image of landslides in Yunnan Province. Note that a number of the landslides, which are all shallow, have started on or by the road

Xinhua image landslides in Yunnan Province.

4. Landslide in Hunan Province, China: Xinhua reports that six people were killed by a landslide in a landslide on 7th November in Huanxin Village, Pingjiang County. The landslide was triggered by heavy rainfall.
5. Landslide in Burma (Myanmar): This is a location in which I suspect that I do not manage to record all of the landslide events that occur, given the news black-out imposed by the Burmese authorities for much of the time. However, reports have emerged that a landslide on 28th October in Mongton Township, Southern Shan state killed 13 workers on a tea farm. The cause was heavy rainfall.