{"id":10730,"date":"2014-08-04T07:40:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T07:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=10730"},"modified":"2014-08-04T07:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-08-04T07:40:39","slug":"sunkoshi-landslide-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/08\/04\/sunkoshi-landslide-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunkoshi landslide crisis: latest news and images"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sunkoshi landslide<\/h5>\n

Over the last few days there have been several developments in the Sunkoshi landslide crisis, some positive and some less so.\u00a0 The very high direct cost of the landslide is now becoming clear.\u00a0 Whilst only 18 bodies have been recovered<\/a> to date, the number missing is thought to be about 155<\/a>, making this the most costly landslide in Nepal for many years.\u00a0 The magnitude of the losses reflect the scale of the landslide – Kunda Dixit<\/a> very kindly sent a set of images of the Sunkoshi landslide collected by the Nepal Army to me, including this overview of the site:<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Sunkoshi<\/a>

Courtesy of the Nepal Army and Kunda Dixit<\/p><\/div>\n

The landslide is reported to be about 45m high at the highest point and 25 m at the lowest.\u00a0 It overtopped late on Saturday, fortunately without a breach to date, and reports suggest that the level of the lake is falling slowly.\u00a0 This is of course the ideal outcome, but great care is needed.\u00a0 If the lake level is falling then water must either be seeping through the dam or the spillway is eroding, either of which can accelerate to generate a rapid release event.\u00a0 Thus, there continues to be a need to manage the hazard very carefully and the ensure that areas downstream are not reoccupied.<\/p>\n

The response of the Nepali authorities does appear to have been admirably quick and decisive, from the early action to open drainage to the large-scale evacuations downstream.\u00a0 It is notable that according to reports they have made use of the very high level of technical skill on landslides within in the country, which has not always been the case elsewhere.<\/p>\n

There has been some discussion in the media of the causes of the landslide.\u00a0 In an article today<\/a>, Narendra Raj Khanal from Tribhuvan University suggested that this slope developed some instability last year.\u00a0 This would be consistent with the progressive development of the landslide, which is clear from the very good Google Earth imagery of the site.\u00a0 This is an image from 2009, as a perspective view:<\/p>\n

\"Sunkoshi<\/a>

From Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

And this is an image from 2012:<\/p>\n

\"Sunkoshi<\/a>

From Google Earth<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The deterioration in the state of the middle part of the hill (around the area with the location marker) is very clearly visible between the two images.\u00a0 Presumably this became much worse last year.<\/p>\n

Finally, it is important to remember that this landslide will be having devastating impacts upstream as well.\u00a0 Clearly the Arniko Highway is closed, and will remain so for some days to come.\u00a0 This is the only road to Tibet from Nepal, and of course the time period each year in which it can be used is comparatively short anyway.\u00a0 Those living upstream will now be isolated from the rest of the country, and of course the lake has inundated a large area of road.\u00a0 Kapil Dhital is a civil engineer who was at Bharabise at the time of the landslide.\u00a0 He has tweeted a series of photographs of the landslide and lake, including this one showing a now submerged dwelling:<\/p>\n

\"Sunkoshi<\/a>

Kapil Dhital<\/a> via Twitter<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sunkoshi landslide crisis in Nepal is now into day 3. The level of the lake may be dropping but the level of hazard remains high <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":10734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[469,959,66,800],"class_list":["post-10730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","category-uncategorized","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-nepal","tag-sunkoshi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}