25 April 2010
A huge landslide on Freeway No.3 in Taiwan
Posted by Dave Petley
Taiwan today suffered an extraordinary landslide in Highway number 3, which links Taipei with Keelung. The landslide appears to have completely buried the road for a distance of about 300 m. The depth of burial looks to be more than 10 m. There are reports that there were a number of cars on the road at the time – if so, the chances of survival are slim.
At the moment the available pictures of this event are poor – no doubt much better ones will emerge tomorrow as this will be a very big story in Taiwan. The best I have been able to find so far are these picture from TVBS:
There is also a youtube video of a news report from the slide site, which you should be able to view below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rH6-QTHvmI
Compare the video above with this image of the site before failure to get an idea of just how large this slide is:
Interestingly, there was no recorded rainfall or earthquakes at the time of the collapse. The mechanism and nature of the failure will be very interesting.
I have been arguing for some time that Taiwan needs to start managing its slopes better. Will this finally see the authorities take some action?
Hat tip to Chingying Tsou of Kyoto University for pointing this one out and providing the links.
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
From the images shown here, this looks to me like a translational rock slide on a failure surface that passes close to (or through) the road surface at the 'upslope' side of the cutting. This might suggest, in the absence of any other information, that failure resulted from a combination of natural strength loss due to weathering leading to progressive failure along a structural weakness (probably a sedimentary bedding plane judging by the video images), combined with excavation to create the highway cutting and remove toe support. No distinct trigger event would be needed for such a scenario.
dave, i sent you a story from the Taiwan News just now too by email in UK. Nig news on TV tonight here, all 5 major channels covering. seems 2-4 cars trapped inside, wife says husband does not answer cell phone , so one person is known to be inside, police say up to 10 people inside cars maybe. prob all dead by now. unless breathing in air pockets. govt plans 24 hour dig, maybe 20 days before find cars….sad…..hapopened at 2:30 pm afternoon, sunny day. completely all of a sudden surprisere ''Will this finally see the authorities take some action?''No, Taiwan govt will not take action. In Chinese culture, death is just a fickle finger of fate thing, and people just say, in Buddhist way, it was meant to be, it was their time to go. So nothing will be done. but another good oped by you in the Taipei Times will help sound the alarm, it's worth trying. but nothing will change Taiwan's ways. This is life here.
dave, i sent you a story from the Taiwan News just now too by email in UK. Nig news on TV tonight here, all 5 major channels covering. seems 2-4 cars trapped inside, wife says husband does not answer cell phone , so one person is known to be inside, police say up to 10 people inside cars maybe. prob all dead by now. unless breathing in air pockets. govt plans 24 hour dig, maybe 20 days before find cars….sad…..hapopened at 2:30 pm afternoon, sunny day. completely all of a sudden surprisere ''Will this finally see the authorities take some action?''No, Taiwan govt will not take action. In Chinese culture, death is just a fickle finger of fate thing, and people just say, in Buddhist way, it was meant to be, it was their time to go. So nothing will be done. but another good oped by you in the Taipei Times will help sound the alarm, it's worth trying. but nothing will change Taiwan's ways. This is life here.
It was a slide of a large mass of colluvium on a rock surface…
I'm not sure if this was actually the trigger, but there was a 6.9 earthquake south of Taiwan:www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/world/asia/26quake.html
not the trigger. earthquake happened a day after the landslide.
to so considerably for your website it assists a lot
How long did it take to clean this up?