28 October 2013

A very interesting video of a house being slowly destroyed by a landslide in Thailand

Posted by Dave Petley

One of the ways that landslides destroy buildings is by forcing a collapse due to progressive loading of the structure.  This is a very interesting process that is perhaps surprisingly poorly studied.  So, a new video that has appeared on Youtube is very welcome.  There is very little information on the website about this event other than that it occurred in Thailand.  The landslide appears to be a large earthflow.  The relentless way in which the landslide loads the building is quite interesting.

At the start, the building is clearly being loaded at the rear, and the top portion is starting to shear:

Thailand landslide video

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By the time the house starts to topple, the upper portion of the building has been pushed forward a significant distance, leading to failure of the columns at the front of the building, which then topples forward:

Thailand landslide video

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Failure of the near end of the building causes the entire structure to progressively collapse.