13 February 2011
Two videos: the aftermath of the remarkable Turkish open cast mine accident and a CNN hero
Posted by Dave Petley
1. The Turkish open cast mine accident
Details of what appears to be an incredible landslide remain frustratingly difficult to track down, but thanks to commenter Christian N for tracking down this video of the site:
http://video.milliyet.com.tr/Afsinde-gocuk-1-olu-5-yarali_1_47731.htm
This is a truly remarkable slide. The only similar event that I can recall is the equally astonishing November 2007 landslide at Yallourn in Australia:
The landslide in Turkey may well be larger than this event.
2. CNN Hero – Anne Hallum
CNN has a very nice video piece highlighting the work of Anne Hallum, who established the NGO AIR, which supports farmers to plant forests to avoid landslides in Guatemala and Nicaragua. The video and article is here:
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.
My turkish is not the best but from the news cover it seems that the place is called Afşin and GoogleEarth shows a large open pit mine close by at this coordinates:
lat=38.3097444608, lon=37.0344321645
If this is the right place, interestingly the power plant stands very close by the pit but it hard to tell if the failure poses any risks..
No, the open pit mine visible on GoogleEarth is not the subject open pit. GoogleEarth does ot have the recent image of the area showing the open pit where the incident took place. The subject site is located couple of miles southwest of the open pit seen on the GoogleEarth.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Am Geophysical Union and Melanie Messerer, Chris Rowan. Chris Rowan said: Two videos: the aftermath of the remarkable Turkish open cast mine accident and a CNN hero http://bit.ly/ejUJ8d […]
Photos from Turkey here: http://aktuel.mynet.com/galeri/haber/kahramanmarasta-gocuk-kahramanmarasta-gocuk/7325/188198/sayfa/4/
and video here:
http://haber.mynet.com/detay/guncel/elbistanda-kabus/555402
There seems to be a good 2008 Thesis on the weakness of the soil/rock at this mine entitled “SLOPE STABILITY ANALYSIS AND DESIGN IN ELBİSTAN-ÇÖLLOLAR
OPEN CAST MINE” – it can be found at http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609939/index.pdf.
I’m no expert but judging by a quick skim through the thesis, the tests and the interesting diagrams show that there were concerns about the possibilty of land slippage.
[…] one occurs that makes you catch your breath. A few weeks ago I included in two posts (here and here) rather sketchy details of a large landslide that occurred on 17th Feb in an open cast coal mine at […]
Appreciate the recommendation. Will try it out.|