18 April 2011

Some interesting weblinks about natural hazards

Posted by Dave Petley

To get things moving in this new week, I thought I’d post a collection of interesting links to articles and sources of information related to natural hazards:

Earthquake hazard in Nepal.  The Guardian blogsite has this excellent article on the measures needed to improve preparedness for a large seismic event in Nepal.  I can only agree that the vulnerability of Kathmandu is startling, but worry also about the likely impacts in rural areas.  Unless we move quickly to address the lack or preparedness a catastrophe is all-but  inevitable.

Flood and landslide damage in Victoria, Australia.  Most of the media coverage of the floods in Australia has focused upon Queensland, but Victoria has also been seriously affected.  The link provides a description of a photo-investigation of the damage to Grampians National Park – there is a gallery of the damage here (click on the left arrow to see most of the images).

EERI reconnaissance report for the Tokuku earthquake in Japan. THe EERI reconnaissance reports for the earthquake and tsunami are now appearing online at this page.  These are wonderful resources – much more will appear over the coming months.

EERI reconnaissance report for the Christchurch earthquake. Similarly, EERI has a wonderful set of resources for the Christchurch earthquake too.

Videos of the Japan tsunami. Susan Kieffer’s wonderful Geology in Motion blog has a fabulous compilation of videos of the Japan tsunami.  They are extraordinary.

Kofels landslide: The History of Geology has a great post that looks at the extraordinary Kofels landslides in the Alps, highlighting in particular the remarkable variety of theories as to the origin of this landslide.