7 September 2011

Landslides in Japan from typhoon Talas

Posted by Dave Petley

Thanks to Colin Stark of Columbia University for his help in tracking down information about these landslides.

The impact of typhoon Talas in Japan is now slowly becoming clear.  A press statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary on Monday indicated that 25 people had been killed and a further 52 people were still missing, with 89 people have received injuries.  However, press reports in Japan suggest that the actual figures may be higher, with 38 people having been killed and 56 people remaining missing.  Heavy rainfall continues to fall across parts of Japan.

The area that appears to have been particularly bad affected is Fudono village in Wakayama.  The Google Earth image below shows the location of one landslide, at Fudono, which is reported to have killed five people:


The actual landslide location in detail is shown here:

This news report carries a good image of the landslide (shwon below, which is also civered in a video that can be viewed here:

By way of comparison, this is the Google Earth perspective view of the site before the landslide:

The news report from which the image above also notes a deep-seated landslide at Gojo in Nara Prefecture.  I am unsure as to whether this is the valley-blocking landslide that is shown in this images in this news report (in Japanese):

This video (which plays very slowly) has footage of both the landslide shown above and another one that may have blocked the valley temporarily: