Some information is now becoming available about the impact of landslides in Beichuan. I have blogged before about this. However, a report in the Chinese Economic Observer online is now beginning to highlight just how bad the problem actually has been. This report states the following: In fact, landslides triggered by the May 12 earthquake had exacerbated the destruction in Beichuan. Take Maoba Middle School for instance, all traces of …

I am starting a second thread here to document landslides reported in the Sichuan earthquake. Background information about landslides and the earthquake is provided in the post below. I will update this list as new information becomes available. I would really welcome any information that can be provided – please email me ( [email protected] ) or post a comment. General observation: as feared, landslides have taken a terrible toll in …

I thought a thread showing some news images of landslides triggered by the Sichuan earthquake would be useful. The first image shows vividly the likely impact of landslides in this area. AP photo entitled “Buildings are destroyed by landslides following Monday’s powerful magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Beichuan in Mianyang city in southwest China’s Sichuan Province Tuesday, May 13, 2008. A signboard atop the building at left reads: Beichuan Hotel” Xinhua …

It is now clear that very substantial numbers of landslides have been triggered by the earthquake in China. Continued landslide activity will be a very major problem during periods of heavy rain. Unfortunately the forecast is not good for the next few days. Xinhua reports: “Three rains are forecast to sweep earthquake-hit southwest China’s Sichuan, southern part of Gansu and Shannxi provinces and Chongqing Municipality in the next seven days, …

12th May @ 07:27 UT: News reports this morning are suggesting that there has been a large, shallow earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. Initial estimates from the USGS are that this was a M = 7.5 (NB this has now been corrected to MW=7.9) event located at just 10 km, although clearly this will need updating. If so, it is reasonable to assume that this earthquake will have triggered large …

One of the interesting aspects of our landslide fatality database is that it is possible to produce maps of the size of the impact of landslides (which in this case means the numbers of people killed) in each event around the world. I tried to do that for my EGU presentation, but my colleague Nick Rosser has produced a rather more attractive version (Fig. 1) showing the 2007 dataset. Fig …

A nasty landslide this week in Peru triggered some thoughts about the occurrence of landslides that kill the passngers on buses. The event that triggered these thoughts occurred on 6th February when heavy rain dislodged a boulder hit a bus and knocked it into the Tarma River in Junin Province in Peru. Seven people were killed and a further 23 were injured. TV3 news in New Zealand had this picture …

Here is the map of fatal landslide locations in 2007. Each black dot represents a single fatal landslide. 2007 fatal landslide map.Click on the map for a large version. Copyright Prof. David Petley A number of clusters are clearly evident:1. The Himalayan Arc: this cluster of landslides extends along the whole of the southern edge of the Himalayan Arc and down into Bangladesh. Landslides here occur mostly in the period …