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29 October 2015
The amazing Tonzang landslides in Burma – NASA images
NASA EO-1 images have revealed the extent of the amazing Tonzang landslides in Burma, which occurred earlier this year. The largest landslide is 5.9 km long
24 September 2010
Remarkable NASA imagery of catastrophic flooding around Manchhar Lake in Pakistan
NASA have provided the most dramatic evidence yet of the catastrophic floods that are occurring around Manchhar (Manchar) Lake in Pakistan (see my post yesterday on this issue). This image was captured by the ALI instrument on 18th September: Compare this with an image taken of the same area just three days earlier: Or the Google Earth image of the same area, which was collected in May this year: Geo-TV, …
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 …
28 January 2010
Earthquake-driven coastal erosion (or a coastal lateral spread) in Haiti
The Discovery Channel has news of a very interesting example of rapid coastal erosion driven by the earthquake in Haiti. The site is at Petit Paradis to the west of Port-au-Prince. Eye-witness reports suggest that the town was struck by a highly localised tsunami in the earthquake, apparently killing 20. This is interesting in part because it is quite likely such a localised event would have been caused by a …
24 November 2009
More El Salvador lahar satellite imagery
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 …
Satellite imagery of the El Salvador lahars
NASA has released before and after satellite images of the lahars (volcanic debris flows) triggered by Hurricane Ida in El Salvador earlier this month. The final toll of the landslides remains unclear, over 60 is the widely reported statistic. The images are false colour composites collected by the ASTER instrument. These images differentiate between vegetation, which appears as red colours, and bare ground, which appear as a blue-grey colour. Such …
18 June 2009
Chongqing landslide – NASA satellite image
NASA have provided the first decent overview of the Chongqing landslide via a high resolution satellite image. This can be found here. The morphology of this is decidedly odd – I will spend some time trying understand it better. According to the NASA page the source is to the north and the landslide has moved southwards and then spread out to the southwest. Meanwhile, the search for victims continues according …
26 May 2009
The Pareechu landslide and flood, 2005
In July 2003 a landslide occurred on the Pareechu stream at 32.322N, 78.735E, a remote tributary of the Satluj River in Tibet (see Fig. 1). The landslide was quite large, blocking the river and allowing a lake to form that eventually breached. In this post I will try to use the range of satellite imagery and reports that are now available to describe the sequence of events. Fig. 1: Google …
Dave Petley is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. His blog provides a commentary on landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.