29 October 2010
An amazing landslide video from Manaus in Brazil
Posted by Dave Petley
Over the years I have featured many videos of landslides in action, some amazing and some less so. Today’s example is right at the amazing end of the scale. This slide appears to be a quick clay type (see earlier examples here and here) event and that it occurred on 17th October at Port Chibatao (shown above before the landslide) in Manaus in Brazil. Note that this is an inland port in the centre of Brazil on the Amazon. The video should be visible below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJcJVxxAFvY
There is also a nice video of the site after the landslide here:
If you cannot get these to work, take a look at this link.
The slide was apparently triggered by a backhoe working an on exit ramp at the site, according to this article. This small level of disturbance would be enough to start a quick clay slide under certain circumstances. The loss of those cargo containers, mostly full of electronic goods according to the article, is going to be very expensive. It appears that two workers were killed, but this is unconfirmed.
I like the new format. Unfortunately, when I try to put this in my Safari-based google reader, I get a “try later” message. Is there a fix?
[…] AGU Landslide Blog] Incredible Brazilian Landslide Footage var idcomments_post_url = […]
That’s amazing. A shame that the camera is so jerky, but what incredible footage regardless.
It is amazing that such a flat place can have such a large slide.
“The slide was apparently triggered by a backhoe working an on exit ramp at the site” do are you sure that a backhoe may triggered this? it seem me to little energy
We stayed in Manaus for a few days some years ago and the video might have been from our hotel roof – we watched the movements of containers in the yard below.
This “Quick Clay Slide” mechanism might explain an event I saw the aftermath of in the North Okanagan in the 1960s:
A bypass was under construction on a very minimal slope above the existing Highway 97. Seems to me a bulldozer was working there when the whole area simply flowed down slope at least 1/2 km. If I recall the operator was fine and the ‘dozer sort of floated along. Maybe Google Sat. will show some evidence still.
I have never heard of quick clays in Brazil; are they known to exist there? My first suspect is very loose silt-sand hydraulic fill “made ground.” If loose enough and saturated, those things can liquefy and flow if disturbed, by earthquake or other cause.
Are any actual factual geotechnical data available yet?
[…] is of course the perfect opportunity to replay the amazing Porto Cibatao landslide video from Brazil to demonstrate just how badly wrong things can go in such […]
[…] the years, including examples from Sweden, Norway and Canada, and a similar type of landslide from Brazil. The most famous example is the Rissa landslide, also in Norway, for which another excellent […]
[…] the years, including examples from Sweden, Norway and Canada, and a similar type of landslide from Brazil. The most famous example is the Rissa landslide, also in Norway, for which another excellent […]