14 April 2009

A round-up of some recent landslide events

Posted by Dave Petley

I thought that it was time to provide a round-up of some landslide events from around the world:

1. A narrow escape in Australia
Thanks to Remke van Dam for bringing this one to my attention. This Australian family had a pretty lucky escape last week when a pair of large rocks struck their car (image from here):


2. A road-blocking rockfall in Alaska
Thanks to John Fritz for this one. In Alaska, a pretty large rockfall has blocked the Whittier tunnel (see news report here):


The landslide occurred on Saturday; the road is expected to be blocked until Wednesday.

3. A fatal landslide in Idaho
In contrast to the first item above, a very unlucky couple were killed by a landslide in Idaho last week. According to this report, the couple’s 4×4 (SUV) was hit by a tree that had toppled onto the road as a result of a small landslide near to Orofino. As the image below (from here) shows, the tree hit the cab, killing the occupants: