{"id":16226,"date":"2015-09-24T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T05:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=16226"},"modified":"2015-09-23T21:00:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T21:00:50","slug":"the-pemberton-portage-road-landslide-in-british-columbia-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/09\/24\/the-pemberton-portage-road-landslide-in-british-columbia-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pemberton Portage Road landslide in British Columbia, Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pemberton Portage Road landslide<\/h5>\n

On Sunday 20th September, heavy rainfall induced a landslide in the town of Birken<\/a>, north of Pemberton in British Columbia, western Canada.\u00a0 This landslide, which has become known as the Pemberton Portage Road landslide, appears to be an impressive flow type slide that caused damage to a house, a highway, railway lines and power infrastructure.\u00a0 Fortunately no-one was injured in the landslide, but of course the owners of the house are the real losers<\/a> as it appears that, in common with many domestic insurance policies, landslides are excluded from their cover.<\/p>\n

Yesterday BC Transportation<\/a> tweeted this very impressive image of the landslide:-<\/p>\n

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\"Pemberton<\/a>

Pemberton Portage Road landslide from BC Transportation<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The landslide itself is interesting.\u00a0 It appears to have started in the steep upper catchment, although the initial failure event is far from clear.\u00a0 It may well be a very small failure or even a temporary blockage in the channel.\u00a0 It then appears to have transitioned into a classic channelised debris flow.\u00a0 The middle part of the landslide track seems to show large amounts of erosion, suggesting that the landslide was entraining material to increase its volume.Deposition may well be controlled by a gradient change in the underlying topography.\u00a0 If you look carefully on the right side of the deposit the house that was destroyed can be seen, as shown in the CBC image<\/a> below.\u00a0 Note that this is a two storey house, so the lower half of the house is completely buried:-<\/p>\n

\"Pemberton<\/a>

Pemberton Portage Road landslide from CBC<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The best impression of the type of debris involved in the Pemberton Portage Road landslide can be gained from this short video of the immediate aftermath of the landslide, uploaded to Youtube by BC Transportation<\/a>:-<\/p>\n