12 October 2009

Updated and corrected: Large rockslide in Naches, Yakima County, Washington State

Posted by Dave Petley

Updated: correct landslide location – thanks to various readers (especially Andrew Giles and Steve in ATL) for helping me to get this right – and apologies for the earlier error.

I have posted an update to this post here.

Various media agencies (e.g. here, here and here) are reporting a large landslide at Naches in Yakima County, Washington State, USA, which has blocked state highway. The Seattle Times has a spectacular photograph:


There is also a rather nice (if a little dramatic) video here.

As can be seen from the above video and picture the slide is large (the news reports suggest half a mile (about 750 m) and large. The slide appears to have come down in good weather.

The landslide appears to have come off this slope (from Google Earth) (this is now the corrected location):


A couple of very quick observations about this:
1. As a couple of commenters have noted, there appears to be a quarry on the right side of the area that has failed.
2. Above the road there appears to be what could be a smaller slump with a large scarp, although the quality of the image is not good enough to tell properly:


See the update to this post here.