A frequently-forgotten but potentially very damaging impact of large earthquakes in mountain areas is the increased occurrence of debris flows and other landslides in the following years.  Whilst these events continue to represent a hazard in their own right, they frequently also cause changes to river dynamics, with resultant high levels of damage.  This problem was illustrated all too clearly in a small village that we visited close to Beichuan …

Back in 2008 I dedicated a great deal of space on this blog to the extraordinary efforts by the Chinese Army to draining the landslide lake at Tangjiashan, just above the town of Beichuan, which was created by the May 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake.   These efforts were ultimately successful, but in my visit to the site in Spring 2009 it was clear that a threat remained at the site in the …

This billboard, which predates the Darfield earthquake, was attached to a building in the Central Business District of Christchurch in New Zealand: Do you think this is what they had in mind when they described the “open plan office with balcony access” and “cool funky office environment”?:

Yesterday I was exceptionally fortunate to be able to spend the morning looking at the surface expression of the fault responsible for the Darfield earthquake, which hit the Canterbury plains area of New Zealand a fortnight ago.  I was kindly guided around by Russ Van Dissen of GNS Science, and the visit was organised by Chris Massey, also of GNS – so many thanks to them.  This GNS map shows …

Bizarrely, I am currently sitting in the QANTAS lounge at Sydney Airport waiting for a flight to New Zealand, where the IAEG Congress starts on Monday.  The theme of the conference is “Geologically Active”… So, what do we know about the earthquake so far.  The best source of information is the Geonet site – http://www.geonet.org.nz/ – which puts seismic data online in real time.  They are reporting that the earthquake …

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 …

The landslide that killed 21 people in China this morning occurred in Hanyaun County (see here and here).  This article, from April this year, may provide some interesting context to the event: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/pubugou-dam-04262010104755.html Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have begun demolishing houses and forcing people from their homes near the Pubugou hydroelectic power project, which is due to go into operation soon. “They are forcibly demolishing houses,” …

The landslide that killed 21 people in China this morning occurred in Hanyaun County (see here and here).  This article, from April this year, may provide some interesting context to the event: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/pubugou-dam-04262010104755.html Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have begun demolishing houses and forcing people from their homes near the Pubugou hydroelectic power project, which is due to go into operation soon. “They are forcibly demolishing houses,” …

On Tuesday evening at 11:45 pm Peru suffered a Mw=6.0 earthquake 125 km (80 miles) NNW of Moyobamba in Amazonas.  This is the USGS location on a Google Earth image: The USGS record suggests that this earthquake was very deep – 132 km – which means that such an event would not normally be associated with landslides.  However, the local paper La Republica is reporting that a large section of …

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 …