You are browsing the archive for Tag: china - Page 19 - The Landslide Blog.
25 October 2010
Landslides, forests and pandas – conservation and the Wenchuan earthquake
The vast number of landslides triggered by the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and in its aftermath has been extensively described, not least on this blog. One of the documented impacts of these landslides was the well-documented loss of habitat of the giant panda (A. melanoleuca) due to extensive forest loss. However, there is a great deal more to that story than meets the eye, as a newly-published paper by Vina …
19 October 2010
Typhoon Megi and the Philippines
In the last 24 hours Typhoon Megi has tracked from east to west across northern Luzon in the Philippines (map from here): At the time of landfall this was a true super typhoon. Even in its current weakened state it is generating gusts of up to 195 kph. Inevitably, it has brought very heavy rainfall to the north of the Philippines, although to date there is no news of any …
14 October 2010
Some statistics on disasters worldwide
Yesterday was the annual United Nations International Day for Disaster Reduction, which this year had a strong urban theme. To highlight the event, which has been somewhat overshadowed by the extraordinary rescue of the Chilean miners, UNISDR put out a press release highlighting the costs of disasters worldwide. The statistics are somewhat sobering: So far in 2010 more than 236,000 people have been killed in disasters 256 million people have …
3 October 2010
Continued debris flow activity in the Wenchuan (Sichuan) earthquake area
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 …
2 October 2010
Beichuan town – the old and the new
On Wednesday I was fortunate to be able to return to Beichuan (see my images of the town, taken last year), the heart of the earthquake-affected areas in Sichuan. Well, to be more accurate I visited the viewpoint looking down on the town. It is clear that debris flows continue to be a major problem at this site: For those who don’t know the site I have annotated the image …
21 September 2010
Tangjiashan again – and a possible new Chinese flowslide
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 …
16 September 2010
Zhouqu landslide – NASA satellite image
NASA have somehow managed to find a gap in the clouds to collect a satellite image of the Zhouqu landslide site. Readers at the time of the landslide last month will remember that I was wondering about the source of the slides. Although this image does not give a full answer, it gets us a part of the way there: A zoom into the affected area yields this: The slides …
2 September 2010
Another large landslide in China
China has today suffered another large landslide event. Xinhua reports that a slide happened at 10:20 pm on Wednesday in the village of Wama in Longyang District, Yunnan, leaving 8 people dead and 40 missing. Xinhua have this image of the slide: As far as I can tell, this is the location: Unfortunately the Google Earth image for this area is poor, but there is a report on a small …
14 August 2010
An extraordinary year for landslides in China
This morning has brought further reports of heavy rain and consequent landslides in China, with more downpours forecast for the next few days. Meanwhile the recovery operations for the Shouqu landslide continue, marked by a national day of mourning for the victims. Note that the cost of the landslide at Shouqu is now reported to be 1239 people, with 505 still missing. The landslides in China this year are interesting …
13 August 2010
Update on China and Pakistan – 13th August 2010
1. The Gansu landslide in ChinaThe rescue operations in Gansu have now clearly transitioned into a recovery and rehabilitation phase, greatly hampered by continuing very heavy rainfall in the area. Landslides are continuing to occur in the area, with resultant casualties. Tom Dijkstra of Loughborough University visited the site as part of a trip to look at collaborative landslide research in the area back in November. He has kindly sent …
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
Recent Comments