{"id":33370,"date":"2020-03-23T07:09:26","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=33370"},"modified":"2020-03-23T17:09:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T17:09:58","slug":"alborz-mountains-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2020\/03\/23\/alborz-mountains-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Alborz mountains in Iran: an extraordinary rockfall video"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Alborz mountains in Iran: an extraordinary rockfall video<\/h4>\n<p><span id=\"ember3644\" class=\"ember-view\">On 20 March 2020 a major rockfall \/ boulder roll occurred in the Alborz mountains of Iran.&nbsp; It was caught on a video that has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tvJyhPuEzd4\">posted to Youtube<\/a>:-<\/span><\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u0641\u06cc\u0644\u0645 \u0631\u06cc\u0632\u0634 \u06a9\u0648\u0647 \u0628\u0631 \u0633\u0631 \u062e\u0627\u0646\u0647\u200c\u0647\u0627\u06cc \u0645\u0631\u062f\u0645 \u062f\u0631 \u0633\u0648\u0627\u062f\u06a9\u0648\u0647 \u0645\u0627\u0632\u0646\u062f\u0631\u0627\u0646\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tvJyhPuEzd4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>As the video shows, this boulder rolled through a village, which is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:6647158969666285568\/\">reported to called<\/a> <span id=\"ember3644\" class=\"ember-view\">&#8220;Pit Sara&#8221; in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Savadkuh_County\">Savadkuh County<\/a> in Mazandaran Province.&nbsp; The rockfall (or boulder roll) was triggered by heavy rainfall.&nbsp; It reportedly destroyed four houses, two cattle sheds a bridge and four vehicles.&nbsp; Reports suggest that the volume of the rock was about 30 cubic metres.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This still from the video shows the moment that the boulder ploughed through one of the houses.&nbsp; Fortunately, the village had been evacuated ahead of the boulder roll event:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33375\" style=\"width: 808px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33375\" class=\" wp-image-33375\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-Iran-1.jpg\" alt=\"Alborz mountains boulder roll\" width=\"798\" height=\"645\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-Iran-1.jpg 1409w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-Iran-1-300x243.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-Iran-1-1024x828.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-Iran-1-768x621.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-33375\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The extraordinary boulder roll in the Alborz mountains of Iran on 20 March 2020. Still from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tvJyhPuEzd4\">video posted to Youtube<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The video also captures the aftermath of the boulder roll event, showing total destruction of anything in its path:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33377\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33377\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33377\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2020\/03\/20_03-iran-2-e1584945769123.jpg\" alt=\"The aftermath of the rockfall in the Alborz Mountains of Iran\" width=\"800\" height=\"472\"\/><p id=\"caption-attachment-33377\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The aftermath of the rockfall in the Alborz Mountains of Iran on 20 March 2020. Still from a video posted to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tvJyhPuEzd4\">Youtube<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alborz\">Wikipedia describes the Alborz Mountains thus<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<p><em>The Alborz range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs northeast and merges into the Aladagh Mountains in the northern parts of Khorasan &#8230; Mount Damavand, the highest mountain in Iran measuring 5,610.0 m (18,405.5 ft), is located in the Central Alborz Mountains.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;sxsrf=ALeKk03dLe6CDVQ5wcEPhRmxnHq97GSRTg%3A1584947188720&amp;ei=9F94Xs7LK9W58gKI157YCg&amp;q=alborz++landslides&amp;oq=alborz++landslides&amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3...29476.29476..29714...0.0..0.94.322.4......0....1..gws-wiz.......33i10.iOcuETyO4BI&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjOla-xhLDoAhXVnFwKHYirB6sQ4dUDCAo&amp;uact=5\">grey literature paper on landslides in the Alborz Mountains<\/a> (NB pdf), which indicates that this is an area with a very significant landslide issue, triggered by both rainfall (as in this case) and earthquakes.<\/p>\n<p>This event is quite reminiscent of the well-known and very spectacular 2<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/01\/29\/tramin-rockfall\/\">1 January 2014 Tramin (Termino) rockfall \/ boulder roll in the South Tyrol in Italy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 20 March 2020 a remarkable Youtube video recorded a major rockfall \/ boulder roll in the Alborz mountains of Iran as it tore through a village, destroying at least four houses.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":33375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[29100,144,469,305,56,35],"class_list":["post-33370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-video","tag-boulder-roll","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-iran","tag-rockfall","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33370","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=33370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}