29 October 2010

An amazing landslide video from Manaus in Brazil

Posted by Dave Petley

Google Earth image of Port Chibato, Manaus

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:

Landslide aftermath

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.