13 November 2010 06:12 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
A report has just been released by the World Bank and the United Nations on the ecoonomics of disaster risk reduction. This post briefly reflects upon the key findings of this influential document.
Tags: disaster risk reduction, humanitarian, new report, United Nations, world bank
31 August 2010 09:22 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
The next few posts will be an attempt to catch up on the things that I missed whilst on vacation in Switzerland last week. Thanks to the many people who have tipped me off about landslide events. I will cover Pakistan in another post.1. A large flow in AustriaThanks to Martin Springer for highlighting this one. On Saturday 21st August a severe storm triggered a 100,000 cubic metre flow in …
Tags: Austria, flow, landslide report, North Korea, pakistan, South Korea, tropical cyclone, typhoon, USA
10 August 2010 08:47 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
As yesterday, this is a brief review of the state of play with the three substantial landslide and flood crises in Asia. 1. PakistanThe flood wave continues to work its way down the Indus, and is now in the Province of Sindh. As forecast, heavy rainfall exacerbated the situation yesterday, with totals of over 100 mm in some areas of the province. Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa also saw falls of 30 mm …
Tags: china, India, landslide report, monsoon, pakistan
18 June 2010 08:07 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
Alongside the continuing Attabad crisis, here is a summary of the last week in landslide events (in no particular order). The list is not exhaustive by any account, but these are the stories that caught my eye: 1.The Oliver debris flow in CanadaI covered this event in a post or two earlier in the week. It is now clear that the trigger was the overtopping and eventual failure (through a …
5 May 2010 08:38 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
In the afternoon of Day 2 I decided to focus more on the human / vulnerability side of natural hazards, and went to two sessions on Social Sciences in Natural Hazards Research. First up was Katie Oven from Durham, with a number of co-authors , who talked about landslide hazards in Nepal . Now I was the principal supervisor of this research, but I am going to write about it …
Tags: conference report, EGU, vulnerability
14 September 2009 02:14 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
A quick post today – I thought I’d post a small selection of impressive landslide images that I have come across recently: Ongoing rockslide in India, from here. Landslides resulting from deforestation in Taraza, Antioquia, Colombia, from here. A long runout landslide from Sichuan in China, from here. After effects of a landslide on the island of Ibiza in Spain, from here.
Tags: images, landslide images
19 May 2009 11:49 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
Some readers will be aware that there has been a rumpus during the last few months at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) over its policy not to organise and run its own expeditions. A small but influential group (the Beagle Campaign) petitioned for, and got, a Special General Meeting of the Fellows of the Society, culminating in a vote on the issue, on Monday. The resolution, which was opposed unanimously …
Tags: exploration, geography, research, RGS-IBG, royal geographical society
18 January 2009 20:22 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
The Jakarta Globe is today reporting a quite large landslide at Buwun Mas village in West Nusa Tenggara Province. This slide is reported to have killed at least four people, with a further 11 potential victims believed to be buried in the debris. The report is quite interesting as it says that: “The area, [Rustam Pakaya, the head of the Ministry of Health’s Crisis Center] said, is used for illegal …
Tags: deforestation, indonesia, landslide report, mining
31 December 2008 11:03 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
Given the time of year, I thought I would try to put together ten resolutions that could lead to a decrease in the impact of landslides. They are in no particular order and apply at a range of scales. I would welcome any comments. Before building infrastructure, we should always map the slopes to check for potential or actual landslides. This is not a complex or difficult thing to do, …
Tags: lessons, resolutions
25 September 2008 08:33 in Uncategorized by Dave Petley
One question that I am quite often asked is why it is that fatalities in landslides occur more at night than in the day. In some ways this is counter-intuitive as one might expect that people would be safer in their houses than they are when they are out and about. At least a part of the answer lies I think in the destructive potential of comparatively slow landslides. Most …
Tags: debris flow, destruction
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