24 December 2012

Four landslide videos for Christmas

Posted by Dave Petley

There are four interesting landslide videos on YouTube today.  The first is a recap of the landslide that derailed a freight train at Everett about a week ago.  This is the original video however, showing the slope before the collapse:

The small slips before the main collapse are incredibly interesting.  The probably indicate that the whole soil mass was moving and deforming, triggering these little collapses.  It would be interesting to see if the rate increases with time – in most cases this is what happens.  Of course the main collapse event is also worth viewing again.

The second is a landslide in a forest in California.  Excuse the commentary, which succeeds in saying little in rather too many words, but the landslide event itself is quite interesting, especially towards the end of the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf6nOWi_22Q

The third is a very strange video of a riverbank collapse in China.  I don’t know the story behind this, but it was clearly something of a surprise for those with the camera!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCH6k58_FYw

And finally this is quite a cool video of a shallow soil slide in Swanage, Dorset over the weekend, resulting from the next bout of rainfall in this extraordinary period in the UK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yYhSMqPZw