The Indus flood wave is continuing to flow steadily southwards across the country.  The annotated WHO flood map below, from my earlier post, is for reference in terms of the locations of the hydrograph stations: The Pakmet hydrograph data shows that the water level at Taunsa is now declining markedly, although it remains in the defined “high” flood category: Downstream at Guddu, the discharge has been rising, although it should …

In the UK the current floods in Pakistan are failing to gather the level of coverage that they deserve, although there has at least been some interest.  The death toll is currently standing at over 1,100 people, with a million or more directly affected.  Fortunately, the Attabad Dam appears to have avoided the worst of the rainfall, so far at least, and has remained intact, although the water level has …

The situation facing NDMA at Attabad remains very challenging.  They continue to need to manage both an understandably restive displaced population and a dam that has reached some kind of dynamic equilibrium, with no major changes appearing to be occurring.  In addition, the optimum solution for the upstream population (draining of the lake) is at odds with the probable wishes of the downstream population (stabilise the lake in place such …

A number of commenters here have suggested that the structure of the dam is such that it cannot now fail due to the presence of the large boulders.  So I thought I’d write a short post exploring whether this is actually the case.  I believe that it can still fail, and indeed that eventually it probably will, but I have no idea as to the likely time-frame.  The reasons that …

Within the mainstream media the Attabad landslide story has been on slow burn for a while now, with a bit of interest last week. However, Reuters have run a story on this today that should now see it gaining a higher profile over the next few days: Reuters Story (Key parts only):Authorities in northern Pakistan are struggling to prevent the bursting of a natural dam formed by a landslide that …

As we are now at the end of the “noughties” I thought that it would be interesting to compile a list of the ten most important “natural” (i.e. geophysical and hydro-meteorological) disasters of the decade. This is not intended to be a list of the ten most damaging or with the highest number of fatalities, but more to reflect events that changed the way that we think or act about …

As we are now at the end of the “noughties” I thought that it would be interesting to compile a list of the ten most important “natural” (i.e. geophysical and hydro-meteorological) disasters of the decade. This is not intended to be a list of the ten most damaging or with the highest number of fatalities, but more to reflect events that changed the way that we think or act about …

Science this week has an article (Stone 2009) on the perils associated with Lake Sarez in the Pamirs. Sarez is a huge lake (56 km long and with a volume of 17 billion cubic metres of water) that was formed by a landslide triggered by the 1911 earthquake in Tajikistan (see image below). Google Earth image of Lake Sarez. The landslide dam is to west (left). Google Earth image of …

In an earlier post today I highlighted the availability of satellite imagery covering the El Salvador lahar disaster, triggered by Hurricane Ida earlier this month. Whilst sitting in a conference session this morning it occurred to me that the Disaster Charter, which provides satellite images for disaster relief and recovery operation, was also triggered by this event. So I had a quick look at the web page for this triggering …

This afternoon at the Chi-Chi earthquake conference in Taiwan the organiser laid on a special session on the impact of Typhoon Morakot in August. This is of great interest to me, given the impact of the landslides, so I thought I’d give summary of the key points. Apologies for the note form – I have done this Twitter-style! 1. The magnitude of the typhoonFor Taiwan this was an extraordinary event. …