![\"Kotropi](\"https:\/\/www.disasterscharter.org\/image\/journal\/article.jpg?img_id=636937&t=1502961110660\")
UNITAR map<\/a> showing the impact of the Regent landslide in Sierra Leone<\/p><\/div>\n .<\/p>\n The map confirms my speculation after the event that this is a high mobility, long runout landslide.\u00a0 Whilst most of the debris remained close to the source (devastating a large number of houses – those are the red dots on the image), a portion transitioned into a very high mobility flow that travelled down the channel, inundating a large number of houses.\u00a0 This explains the description of the Regent landslide as both a mass movement and a flood – it was indeed both, but the initial landslide was the common cause.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the\u00a0NRSC\/ISRO in India has posted an initial but detailed report<\/a> about the Kotrupi \/ Kotropi landslide. \u00a0 This confirms the location that I identified in my post earlier this week, and it indicates that the slope that I identified as being the likely culprit did indeed fail. They include this satellite image of the site:-<\/p>\n NRSC \/ ISRO satellite image<\/a> of the Kotropi landslide.<\/p><\/div>\n .<\/p>\n In comparison with the Regent landslide, the Kotropi event<\/a> was also large but does not appear to have had high mobility, with the flow appearing to cease on a steep portion of the slope.\u00a0 Once again one cannot escape the vital role that material properties play in determining landslide behaviour.\u00a0 This image does raise a key question about the landslide though.\u00a0 News reports in the last day or so have raised concerns that it is a valley blocking slide.\u00a0 This article<\/a> for example states that:<\/p>\n The Mandi administration today evacuated five villages near Kotrupi as after a massive landslide on August 13 a lake has been formed in the upper side of villages. The Kotrupi landslide killed 46 people.<\/span>..Ex-pradhan of Gram Panchayat Urla Tek Singh said five villages — Saraj Bagla, Badvaan, Ropa, Sharsti and Jagehad — had been vacated in view of the safety concerns.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the image above does not suggest a valley blocking landslide.\u00a0 I am unsure as to what is going on here.\u00a0 This is the Planetlabs image<\/a> from 14th August:-<\/p>\n Planet Team (2017)<\/a> image of the Kotropi landslide, taken on 14th August 2017<\/p><\/div>\n .<\/p>\n This shows much the same as the Indian image above, though with a better level of detail. It is clearly not valley blocking.\u00a0 This is a further Planetlabs image<\/a> taken on 16th August:-<\/p>\n Planet Team (2017)<\/a> image of the Kotropi landslide, collected on 16th August 2017<\/p><\/div>\n .<\/p>\n On first inspection there is little change.\u00a0 But, is there an indication that debris has mobilised at the toe of the slide (unfortunately under the cloud) and travelled down the gully.\u00a0 This image appears to show fresh sediment in the lower channel that is not apparently there in the earlier image?\u00a0 This might be an artefact in the image, or it could be a real effect.\u00a0 If the latter then this might explain the concerns about blocked channels.<\/p>\n I would welcome thoughts from others.<\/p>\n Acknowledgement<\/strong><\/p>\n Planet Team (2017)<\/a>. Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA.\u00a0https:\/\/api.planet.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Further details are now emerging about the Kotropi and Regent landslides, which have killed hundreds of people in India and Sierra Leone this week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":25197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,469,5,959,7494,25,7413,72],"class_list":["post-25192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-africa","tag-featured","tag-india","tag-landslide-report","tag-planetlabs","tag-satellite","tag-sierra-leone","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25192","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=25192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}