Every so often an event occurs to shake up out of our complacency. So often this is a disaster that is mind-bogglingly destructive, such as the Wenchuan Earthquake landslides last year. However, just occasionally something that happens that is far less damaging than would be expected. This of course is easier to ignore, but in fact can be just as informative as the big events. Yesterday is just such a …

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 …

The UN ISDR is today launching with a great fanfare the first Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. This report “provides hard-hitting evidence to demonstrate how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally and presents key findings from a global analysis of disaster risk patterns and trends, including where high mortality and economic loss is concentrated. .” The report is online now and can be downloaded here. I …

The UN ISDR is today launching with a great fanfare the first Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. This report “provides hard-hitting evidence to demonstrate how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally and presents key findings from a global analysis of disaster risk patterns and trends, including where high mortality and economic loss is concentrated. .” The report is online now and can be downloaded here. I …

Driving home from work last night, and bored with listening to endless discussions on the radio about the ways in which politicians use the system to personal gain, I started pondering what we have learnt from the Wenchuan Earthquake a year ago. The media yesterday understandably focused on collapsed schools. We have known for years that critical buildings in earthquake zones need seismic reinforcement, so this is hardly new. These …

Each year in mid-April we move into the global “landslide season”, when the development of the Northern Hemisphere summer, and the associated weather patterns elsewhere, means that the number of landslides starts to increase dramatically. This is all too clear from the range of landslide events in the last few days, plus the threat of heavy rainfall in the earthquake affected areas of China: 1. Major landslide in PeruA range …

This is the fifth and last part of my photographic description of damage caused by the Sichuan earthquake. The other parts are as follows: Part 1: Beichuan townPart 2: The Tangjiashan landslidePart 3: Hanwang townPart 4: The Mianyuanhe areaPart 5 (this part): The Xingyiu area This final section shows images from a visit to the Xingyiu area, which is quite close to the main epicentral region. In this area the …

This is the third of my five sets of images of the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, China. The first two are as follows:Part 1: Beichuan town Part 2: The Tangjiashan landslide Part 3 (this part): Hanwang townPart 4: The Mianyuanhe areaPart 5: The Xingyiu area In this set of images I feature the town of Hanwang, on the edge of the mountains. The location of Hanwang is …

There is little doubt that the Wenchuan (Sichuan) earthquake in May generated a huge number of shallow rock slides. A very odd story has now appeared in the Chinese media in which it is observed that the rock slide scars appear to form frescoes (wall-mounted murals) on the mountain sides. So, in the words of the People’s Daily Online “Although the massive Wenchuan Earthquake caused tremendous damage, it has also …

At recent edition of Science carries a really intriguing review piece that examines the triggers of the Wenchuan earthquake. Although earthquake triggering is really beyond the scope of this blog, the huge number of devastating landslides that the earthquake induced means that this is of interest. The article can be read online here. The article has emerged from work undertaken at two different locations. Christian Klose of Columbia University presented …