Focus have kindly provided a new set of images of the situation at Attabad with respect to the spillway.  I think that these images were taken yesterday. Most importantly, here is an overview image of the spillway: It is helpful to compare this with the image of the spillway from 1st June (right hand image): It is clear that the situation has developed considerably over the last few days.  The …

Yesterdays “coalition” resurvey of the spillway and water level now appears to provide a definitive freeboard value.  As of 8 am this morning the freeboard was 3.027 metres, representing an increase of water level of 1.09 metres in the last 24 hours.  This elevated rate of water level rise probably reflects the warmer weather in the area in the last few days, which will be driving snowmelt.  I have recalculated …

That bastion of “quality” journalism, the Daily Mail, has an article about the Highway 3 landslide that includes a set of high quality images of the site: tic The article correctly identifies the failure as being a dip-slope slide: “The hill had a dip slop [sic – should be slope] on the side nearest the motorway. The other side of dip slopes are steep and irregular, while the slope itself …

Thanks to reader CConkle for the heads-up on this one. An impressive slide happened this morning by the side of Freeway 10 near to Pamona in California. The slide has completely blocked the road (pictures from the LA Times): It is uite interesting that the weather does not indicate an obvious trigger for what appears to be a failure on a reprofiled slope. However, California has suffered recent exceptional rainfall …

As I am currently in Sydney en route to New Zealand it seemed appropriate to post an Australian story. Australia rarely appears on the fatal landslide database, but it currently has a profound slope failure issue of its own, which is sufficiently serious to merit a campaign by a newspaper. The issue is related to the Murray River in the southeast of the country: The problem is that the Murray …

Like 16,000 other Earth and environmental scientists, I am heading off next week to the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which is held in San Francisco. I have attended several times before – it is an amazing meeting – but this year there is added spice provided by the new Natural Hazards grouping, which means that there is far more of interest for me. The landslide specific session …

Whilst pushing my five year old daughter on the swing the other day (a task that leaves plenty of time to think!), I was pondering upon the greatest landslide papers of all time. I thought that it would be interesting to compile a list and invite suggestions of alternatives. So, here is my list, in no particular order: 1. Terzaghi on the principle of effective stressIn 1936 Karl von Terzaghi …

The Naches landslide, as I reported in my post yesterday, is a somewhat intriguing failure. The weather conditions were dry, the rivers are in low flow conditions, and there has not been an earthquake that could have caused the failure. So what happened? A clue may be in the landslide type. Several reports have suggested that the initial failure was a rotational slide. I am struggling slightly to get a …

Image from here The La Jolla landslide in San Diego California occurred in October 2007, destroying three houses and a road, and leaving many more damaged. The landslide is currently the subject of a lawsuit that was filed by the householders. I am not going to comment further on the slide whilst this is going on, but as part of the evidence in the case some mobile phone footage has …

NB: I have posted an update on this landslide here. A somewhat intriguing landslide occurred on Saturday at Nachterstedt in Germany (the location is 51.808 N, 11.343 E for those who are interested). The site is the edge of Lake Concordia, a flooded open cast coal mine: The mine apparently closed in 1991 whereupon it was converted into a recreation area. The lake was apparently created in 1994. Reports suggest …