You are browsing the archive for Landslides Mudslides.
5 August 2009
30 years ago – the Abbotsford landslide, New Zealand
As well as being something of a landmark birthday for my wife Kirstie, Saturday will also be the 30th anniversary of one of the best known and most interesting landslides in New Zealand – the Abbotsford landslide of 8th August 1978. This was a large (5 million cubic metre) slide that caused the loss of 69 houses, with an overall cost of about NZ $10 million. Fortunately, no lives were …
29 July 2009
Landslide-induced train accident in China
The landslide misery in China continues, despite the strange lack of typhoons to date this summer. The latest incident occurred in Liuzhou City of Guangxi Province when a train struck a landslide and derailed. According to Xinhua four people were killed and 50 others were injured, at least ten of whom were seriously hurt. Xinhua has published a photograph of the aftermath of the incident: Thus it appears that the …
16 July 2009
Earthquake induced landslides
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 …
23 February 2009
A few items of interest
You may have noticed that the number of posts on this blog has dipped of late. My apologies for this – we learnt just before Christmas that my seven year old son Adam needed open heart surgery, which was undertaken earlier this month. I am glad to say that it was a complete success and he has today returned to school, so normal service will hopefully be returned. So, I …
9 October 2008
Young River Landslide, New Zealand
Interesting news from New Zealand, where for the last few months there has been some concern about a landslide dam on South Island. The landslide itself occurred in a fairly remote area of the Southern Alps at 4:40 am on 29th August 2007. The landslide, which is well-described in a GNS Science poster here (there are some great images and some good data on that poster), blocked the river valley …
25 August 2008
Presentation from New Zealand
This week I am giving three presentations in New Zealand – first in Christchurch today, then Wellington tomorrow and Auckland on Thursday. The title of the presentation is Earthquake Induced Landslides – Lessons from Taiwan and Pakistan. The talk is to the various branches of the New Zealand Geotechnical Society and the New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering. I have uploaded the presentation to authorstream so that it can be …
23 August 2008
Shotover rockfall in New Zealand
Reports today suggest that an interesting landslide problem in New Zealand has finally come to a close. The location of the problem was the Shotover River in Otago, which is a little to the north of Queenstown on South Island. Shotover is famous as an extreme sports location – in particular jet-boating on the Shotover River, white water rafting and a canyon swing (a sort of bungee jump I think) …
4 May 2008
The Taihape Landslide monitoring project
Last summer I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with my friends from GNS Science who are undertaking a monitoring project on the Taihape landslide in New Zealand (see Google Earth image right). Taihape, which is located as -39.68°, 175.80°, is described on Wikipedia as “a small, picturesque town near the middle of the North Island . It services a large rural community and lies on the …
25 January 2008
Rock avalanche in New Zealand and Sodbury landslip in the UK
In the last week or so there have been two contrasting examples of landslides that demonstrate the poor relationship between size and impact. First, there was this rather interesting and quite large rock avalanche in Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand: The 13th January 2008 Aoraki-Mt Cook landslide Picture from: New Zealand Herald There is a really nice set of photos in Flash form on the New Zealand Herald website …
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