For those that are new to my blog, one aspect of my research is to maintain a database of landslides that kill people.\u00a0 This has been running since September 2002 (i.e. for eight years so far).\u00a0 So, each month I try to produce a brief report on the number landslide events that have entered the database, and the number of fatalities that resulted.\u00a0 This should be treated as provisional at this stage as I have some further verification work to do.<\/p>\n
So, for October 2010 I recorded a total of 32 landslide events that resulted in one or more deaths.\u00a0 These landslides resulted in 273 fatalities.\u00a0 Excluding seismically-induced events (most notably the October 2005 Kashmir earthquake), the average number of fatal landslides over the previous seven years was 35, resulting in an average of 394 fatalities, so 2010 should be seen as being below average.\u00a0 The largest number was 2009, when I recorded 83 events, mostly due to landfalling tropical cyclones.\u00a0 However, as the graph below shows, 2010 remains on track to be the year with the most fatality-inducing landslides recorded to date.\u00a0 The graph shows cumulative totals, with 2009 (the previous record), 2003 (the lowest annual total) and the average displayed:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2010\/11\/10_11-cumulative-total-1.jpg\")
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