17 May 2019

Another, probably even larger, rock avalanche on Joffre Peak

Posted by Dave Petley

Another, probably even larger, rock avalanche on Joffre Peak

Yesterday a second, probably even larger, rock avalanche occurred on Joffre Peak in British Columbia in Canada.  This event appears to have been a collapse of second major section of the steep side of the mountain, following the major event on Sunday.  Many thanks to the many people who have highlighted this event to me, it is fascinating that another collapse has happened so soon after the first.  Global News has a short article on the event, which includes this image, collected by Nicholas Zichy and posted to Facebook, of the landslide scar:-

Joffre Peak

The scar from the second major rockslide at Joffre Peak in Canada. Image by Nicholas Zichy on Facebook via Global News

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The image does appear to suggest that this failure event is larger than the original last Sunday.  The collapse was picked up on the regional seismic network.  A tweet by John Cassidy indicates that it was detected by the seismic stations at Whistler, Lillooet, and Hope, with the event happening at a little after 9 pm on 16th May 2019.

It is likely that this landslide will have had a significant runout, but the timing of the landslide means that as yet there is no available data on this at the time of writing.  Hopefully the landslide track will be flown by helicopter or drone today, or it may be visible in a satellite image, cloud permitting.