Pathe News

British Pathe News was a company that generated short (four minute) films summarising the latest news, which were then shown in cinemas in the UK and elsewhere.  The company was active from 1910 to 1970, before being killed off by television news coverage.  The archive is clearly a wonderful source of information about world events over this period.  In the last few days, British Pathe have uploaded about 88,000 films onto a Youtube Channel.  The films are genuinely amazing – I thoroughly recommend a browse if you have an hour or two.

Pathe News and landslides

Unsurprisingly, situated within the archive are various films showing landslides.  I will highlight just a small number here:

There is some spectacular footage of the aftermath of a rockslide-induced tsunami in Norway in 1936, which the film indicates killed over 70 people:

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There is also a nice piece of footage of the aftermath of a landslide on the Adriatic Coast in Italy in 1956, which knocked a steam train into the sea:

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There is some quite dramatic footage of the aftermath of a large rockslide in Los Angeles, USA in 1937:

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And finally there is some desperately sad footage of the aftermath of the 1966 Aberfan landslide disaster in Wales: