Excavator earth slide from Youtube

Excavator earth slide

The circumstances of this excavator earth slide are not clear:

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It’s a nice illustration both of the effects of removal of toe support and of the development of failure though.  Note how the removal of the toe of just a part of the slope has triggered much more widespread failure.  It is also a really nice illustration of the development of a retrogressive failure.

The driver of the excavator was pretty cool in the face of the developing landslide.