16 October 2012

An intriguing landslide from Bulgaria

Posted by Dave Petley

The Sofia News Agency carried a report and picture yesterday of a landslide on the coast near to Kranevo on the Black Sea in Bulgaria.  The image is shown below:

 

The commentary in the article states:

“The strip covered by the landslide is about 2 km, while the fishermen village near the shoreline is the most affected. The road leading to the water is completely destroyed with some of the fishermen trailers buried by the land mass.  Eight people have been temporarily blocked, but have already managed to leave. No one has been injured.  The landslide was activated Sunday, bringing down huge land mass that inflicted serious damage. A 100-year-old lighthouse has been fully destroyed along with damages to several nearby vacation homes, and several stranded automobiles.”

Wikipedia reports that there is a lighthouse 3 km south of Kranevo at Cape Ekrene.  This implies that the stretch of coast affected is the one shown in the Google Earth image below, although it is not clear where the landslide is located within this area:

The landslide itself is quite interesting, even though the image does not show most of it.  The Buildings and trees have been rotated to lean inland, suggesting a rotational landslide  Note that the sea floor has also been pushed up out of the water by the same process.

Does anyone have any more information or images?