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21 October 2011
Remembering the Aberfan disaster – 45 years ago today
Today marks the 45 anniverasary of the Aberfan landslide disaster. In this post, Brett Cherry and I review the events of that day and consider the lessons that can be learnt from this the worst landslide disaster in UK history.
29 July 2011
China has suffered another tailings dam failure
Unfortunately, it is now clear that on 21st July another tailings dam failure occurred in China, again with serious effects. Adrian Moon has very kindly provided the following description: There has been a major release of tailings from the Xichuan Minjiang Electrolytic Manganese Plant in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture. Accounts are here and here and there are others. Photographs can be found here, video here. The plant …
28 April 2011
Mining-related landslides in the Philippines
A discussion about mining-related landslides in Mindanao in the Philippines, including a discussion of the difficulties of reducing the losses associated with them.
16 October 2010
Round up of landslide stories and events for the last week
In weeks in which I have been too busy to post a great deal of material, I often provide a summary of interesting landslide events around the world. This is the summary for the last week:1. A very strange landslide in Germany Thanks once again to Peter Diehl, the prize for bizarre landslide event of the week goes to a very strange event at a former lignite mine near Hoyerswerda, …
7 October 2010
The Ajkai Timfoldgyar tailings dam disaster: Lessons from the Los Frailes tailings dam failure in Spain
The clean up at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar tailings debris flow accident site continues today, with continued concern about the potential for pollution of the downstream rivers from the environmentally-damaging debris. I do not wish to speculate on the cause of this accident, but will note that foundation failure is a well-established failure mode for tailings dams – see for example the excellent wise-uranium.org site, which has a section on typical …
6 October 2010
Interesting images of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar tailings dam accident in Hungary
As predicted, a number of interesting images are now available of the site of the breach that caused the Ajkai Timfoldgyar tailings debris flow in Hungary on Monday. Thanks again to Peter Diehl for his tireless work in seeking out and highlighting the best images. The best slide show, surely destined to become an invaluable teaching aid, is available at this link: http://galeria.index.hu/belfold/2010/10/05/legifelvetelek_az_atszakadt_gatrol/ In terms of the failure that caused …
5 October 2010
The Hungarian tailings dam accident – images of the failure of the impounding embankment
Thanks to both Peter Diehl, PeterOi and an anonymous commenter for pointing out the locations of images of the embankment that failed to release the landslide of toxic sludge in Hungary. The best one is probably this image, from Der Standard in Austria: The failure appears to have occurred in the corner of the embankment, as shown in this Google Earth image: I cannot quite work out the internal structure …
Tailings landslide in Hungary and a dam crisis in Vietnam
News today, barely covered in the international mainstream media so far, of a new tailings-related landslide in Hungary yesterday. The only English report that I have seen so far is on the Chinese CriEnglish website, which reports that 700,000 cubic metres of bauxite ore formed a flow that struck three villages in Veszprem county. These villages appear to be Devecser, Somlóvásárhely and Kolontar. The Google Earth imagery of this area shows the origin if the accident …
13 December 2009
Poor mining management was the cause of the Sigou Village landslide in China
Back in August I posted a couple of times on a fatal landslide in at Lifan (sometimes written Loufan) in Sigou County in Shanxi Province in China (the posts are here and here), which appeared to be a mining related flowslide that killed 45 people. Yesterday the People’s Daily website ran a story explaining the results of the enquiry into the landslide: “Illegal production and slack safety oversight were main …
16 November 2009
Mining related loess landslide in China kills at least 12
See update here The Chinese language version of the Xinhua website is reporting that a landslide occurred this morning in Zhangzishan Township, Zhongyang County, Luliang in Shanxi province, burying five houses. Reports suggest that about 25 people were buried – of these two have been rescued alive whilst 12 bodies have been recovered so far. Xinhua has images of the scene: You may well have noticed the slightly odd aspect …
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.
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