27 June 2012

Multiple landslide impacts worldwide in the last few days

Posted by Dave Petley

Over the last few days there have been major landslide events in many countries.  As reported yesterday, a large landslide occurred in Uganda a couple of days ago on the flanks of Mount Elgon.  Although the loss of life remains unclear, the likely total is around about 40 people.  The BBC have an excellent image of the landslide on their website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18595913

The death toll of this event was lower than it could have been due to the timing of the failure, which happened during the day when children were out at school and adults were at the market or working elsewhere.

This was not the case in Bangladesh, where very heavy rainfall overnight triggered a series of landslides that have killed at least 91 people in multiple locations in Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar and Bardaban.

Meanwhile, in Guwahati in Assam, India heavy rainfall has triggered a series of landslides over several days, with at least 8 deaths.

Finally, in British Colombia in Canada there has been a series of debris flows and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall during the snowmelt season.  Thanks to Andrew Giles for pointing out this image of one of the slides from Tran BC:

A good impression of the magnitude of the rainfall that caused this event can be gained from this Youtube video from Sicamous, also in BC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKdJ72a_kjQ