A new paper in the journal Engineering Geology (Zhang et al. 2023) examines the evolution of landslides after the Wenchuan earthquake. It found that in the first two years landslide activity increased further, but then declined.

The research legacy of the Wenchuan Earthquake: a new review Ten years ago the most destructive seismic event in a generation, the Wenchuan Earthquake, struck the Longmenshan in Siichuan Province in China.  I covered the event on this blog – indeed on 12th May 2008, at 07:27 UT, 29 minutes after the Earthquake occurred, I wrote: “it is reasonable to assume that this earthquake will have triggered large numbers of …

Five years ago today the Wenchuan earthquake struck in China. This post reports on a new paper that reflects on what we have learnt from this event

This post provides details of an analysis of the loss of life from landslides triggered by earthquakes. It is based on a presentation to be given at the International Symposium on earthquake induced landslides in Chengdu this morning. A full PDF of the presentation is available on the site.

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China remains the defining landslide event of the last three decades.  To commemorate this event, the State Key Laboratory of Geo-hazard Prevention (SKLGP) at the Chengdu University of Technology are organising a symposium entitled: An International Symposium on Earthquake Induced Landslides and Disaster Mitigation at the 3rd Anniversary of the Wenchuan Earthquake This will take place in Chengdu, China from 11th to 15th May 2011, including two …

The vast number of  landslides triggered by the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and in its aftermath has been extensively described, not least on this blog.  One of the documented impacts of these landslides was the well-documented loss of habitat of the giant panda (A. melanoleuca) due to extensive forest loss.  However, there is a great deal more to that story than meets the eye, as a newly-published paper by Vina …

Yesterday there was a special session of the Sinorock Conference in Hong Kong, focused on the Wenchuan Earthquake. This involved six presentations and then a lively round-table discussion. This is a brief review. The first talk was given by colleagues from Chengdu University of Technology on the topic of the landslides triggered by the earthquake. This was visually spectacular, emphasising the scale, density and impact of the landslides that were …

No words can do justice to the first anniversary of the Wenchuan (Sichuan) earthquake, so I won’t even try. Instead I post these pictures as a silent memorial to the victims.

(In response to requests, I have edited the post to provide some comments on the images) I am in the middle of putting together a presentation on the impact of the Wenchuan Earthquake in China in May and thus have been looking for suitable materials. I stumbled across a fantastic Powerpoint presentation with images of the aftermath of the earthquake – this can be downloaded here. There are a number …

The 27 June 2023 landslide at Miansi, Sichuan Province, China, which is reported to have killed at least seven people.