{"id":38309,"date":"2021-07-26T07:55:06","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T07:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=38309"},"modified":"2021-07-26T07:55:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T07:55:06","slug":"batseri-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2021\/07\/26\/batseri-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The rockslide at Batseri in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The rockslide at Batseri in India<\/h4>\n<p>It has been a busy weekend for landslide stories to the degree that it&#8217;s been difficult to know where to start this morning.\u00a0 However, I have decided it is worth writing about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outlookindia.com\/website\/story\/india-news-watch-landslide-due-to-bridge-collapse-leaves-9-dead-in-himachal-pradesh\/389369\">rockslide at Batseri in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Prrdesh in northern India<\/a>, the videos of which circulated yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>There are several videos of this event, taken from different perspectives.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZEPVXBMiqNI\">I think it is worth starting with this one as it shows, right at the start, the source of the rockslide<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Batseri village - landslide Sangla kinnaur\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZEPVXBMiqNI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Nine seconds into the video it also shows traffic passing along the road that traverses the slope, of which more later.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9DtJ_fQmcA8\">The second and third videos are both in the clip that you should be able to view below<\/a>:<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tragic landslide in Batseri, Sangla District Kinnaur Himachal Pradesh\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9DtJ_fQmcA8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>These show the dramatic movement of the boulders down the partially forested slope.<\/p>\n<p>And then there is the viral video (which is also in the compilation above), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oO1QnFqOL0g\">which is best shown in this version<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Himachal Pradesh: Valley bridge Batseri in Sangal valley of Kinnaur collapses.tourists dead\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oO1QnFqOL0g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>The rockslide appears to have started as a result of a collapse on a very steep, rocky outcrop above the bridge at Batseri.\u00a0 The image below shows the terrain using Google Earth.\u00a0 The rock slope has numerous rockslide scars:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38312\" style=\"width: 808px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38312\" class=\" wp-image-38312\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Google Earth view of the terrain at Batseri.\" width=\"798\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-300x229.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-1024x780.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-768x585.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-1536x1171.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-1-2048x1561.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38312\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google Earth view of the terrain at Batseri.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>It appears that a mass collapsed, maybe about 700 m vertically above the bridge, and fragmented to generate the &#8220;evil dancing boulders&#8221;.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2011\/08\/02\/images-of-landslides-from-the-christchurch-earthquakes-part-2-evil-dancing-boulders\/\">I have noted previously that the situation in which the boulders start to rotate about a short axis and to bounce is very dangerous<\/a>.\u00a0 This is the case for numerous boulders here, generating extremely high velocities.\u00a0 Before the bridge is hit one boulder (visible at about 19 seconds into the final video above) takes an enormous bounce due to the terrain:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38314\" style=\"width: 519px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38314\" class=\"wp-image-38314\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-2a.jpg\" alt=\"The evil dancing boulders at Batseri in India. \" width=\"509\" height=\"777\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-2a.jpg 777w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-2a-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-2a-671x1024.jpg 671w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2021\/07\/21_07-Batseri-2a-768x1172.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-38314\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The evil dancing boulders at Batseri in India. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9DtJ_fQmcA8\">Still from a video posted to Youtube<\/a>. The boulder circled has take a huge bounce.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>The boulder that destroys the bridge also bounced very high, meaning that it impacted the structure in close to freefall.\u00a0 The bridge was unable to withstand the impact.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately there is a tragic footnote to this event.\u00a0 A tourist bus was traversing the road at the time of the landslide, and was hit directly by at least one boulder.\u00a0 Nine people were killed and three were injured.\u00a0 Included in those tragically killed was <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/deepadoc\">Dr Deepa Sharma<\/a>, a well known nutritionist with a large following on Twitter.\u00a0 Earlier in the day she had <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/deepadoc\/status\/1419198227249651712\/photo\/1\">tweeted a selfie of herself standing at the start of the militarised zone along the border with Tibet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This stands testament to the tragedy of the event.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<h4>Acknowledgement<\/h4>\n<p>Many thanks to the various people who brought this to my attention.\u00a0 It is much appreciated.<\/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>There are several videos of the rockslide that destroyed the bridge at Batseri in Himachal Pradesh in India yesterday<!-- 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":38314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[469,5,963,136,72,35],"class_list":["post-38309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-video","tag-featured","tag-india","tag-landslide-video","tag-rockslide","tag-south-asia","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38309","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=38309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}