Around this time of the year I always start to turn my attention to the European Geociences Union meeting in April. This is a huge get-together of earth scientists from around the world (last year >8,500 people attended). One of the largest divisions is “Natural Hazards”, and the landslide section, of which I am the secretary, is the biggest single part of NH. Next year (2009) the meeting will be …

For some 12 or so years I have maintained a set of notes on the amazing Vajont (sometimes spelt Vaiont) landslide of N. Italy. This is the most deadly landslide in Europe in recorded history. For a while I have been meaning to move the notes over to here – today I have finally got around to it, so here they are: THE VAJONT LANDSLIDEIntroductionThe Vajont reservoir disaster is a …

(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 terrible landslide at El Doweiqa in the Manshiet Nasser slum in Cairo (see earlier posts here and here) continues to shock. The death toll has now reached 45 people, with many more still buried in the debris. News reports suggest that there is growing dissatisfaction with the response of the authorities in Egypt. To be fair, relatives in disasters such as this are often very frustrated at the speed …

The newswires are providing early reports of a terrible rockslide at Deweka (also reported as Bekheit and Manshiyet Nasron) on the outskirts of Cairo in Egypt. The slide appears to be a rather strange failure of a rock slope, releasing huge boulders that have buried several (and possibly many) buildings. This Al Jazeera post contains a very useful report and also has this image of the site: They are reporting …

Back on 1st August I posted about a landslide that had blocked the Sea to Sky Highway (Canadian Highway 99), which links Vancouver to Whistler, venue of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The road was blocked for a few days, but has now reopened. Two sets of colleagues in Canada have very kindly provided follow ups to that post. First, Frank Baumann, who is a geotechnical engineer in Squamish has …

Hat tip to Scott McDougall, Erik Eberhardt and Andrew Giles, all from Canada, for this one. Many readers will be familiar with the classic book “Rock Slope Engineering” by Evert Hoek, which still represents the bible for understanding the mechanisms of failure of hard rock slopes. The cover of the original version featured a photograph of a 1965 rock slope failure on the so-called “Sea to Sky” highway in British …