Landslides

[Robyn Appleton]

"The causes of landslides are not a mystery to mankind. Layers of rock and soil such that rain running along a clay or rock layer can create a slippery surface for the weight of the layers above it is a common cause. A rock jumble from previous mountain building, broken or fractured rock easily dislodged. We have stated that the earthquakes man experiences between the periodic passages of Planet X can be considered aftershocks from the last passage, and this is true of landslides also. Mountain building rumples the landscape, so the land is not flat but has steep ravines and hill sides. Older mountain ranges are recognized for their rounded or smoothed appearance, because of frequent landslides distributing the rubble.

"As we approach another passage, another Pole Shift, the pace of landslides has picked up. Why would this be? Plates under pressure will put pressure on regions that contain rumpled hillsides and deep ravines, as these give more readily than strictly flat land, thus act as a weak link. In addition, due to the wobble, the weather has gotten more extreme, with drought and deluge increasing in extremes. Dry ground, suddenly flooded with rainwater needing to seek its level as runoff, will create internal water slides between the rock and soil layers that constitute the rumpled hillsides. Is there an early warning system that mankind could use? The trembles that soil about to slide emits could be detected, yes. These are not earthquakes, and have their own frequency. "

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A: March 22, 2014

[SongStar101]

New landslide sweeps through Myanmar jade mine

http://news.yahoo.com/deadly-landslide-hits-myanmar-jade-mine-03533...

Rescuers were searching through mud and rubble on Saturday after a new landslide buried workers -- possibly dozens -- in a remote jade mining region in northern Myanmar, the second such incident in just over a month.

The landslide took place on Friday afternoon in Hpakant, Kachin State, the war-torn area that is the epicentre of Myanmar's secretive billion dollar jade industry.

"The rescue process has now started and we are searching for dead bodies but we can't tell the numbers yet," Nilar Myint, an official from Hpakant Administrative Office, told AFP.

An AFP photographer on the scene said mechanical diggers had been brought in to sift through a huge pile of debris that had slid down a steep hillside.

Locals report as many as 50 people might have been buried by the wall of mud and stones.

But a second official involved in the rescue operation downplayed that number.

 

Miners ride on a truck near a jade mine in Hpakant, Myanmar's Kachin State (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Th …

"According to what officials from nearby villages have told us, just three or four people are missing at the moment," Myo Thet Aung, also from the Hpakant Administrative Office, told AFP.

By mid-afternoon Saturday officials said they still had not found any bodies.

The same area was hit by a massive landslide last month that killed more than 100 people. Locals says dozens more have died throughout the year in smaller accidents.

The region is remote, with little phone coverage and poor roads making it difficult to obtain precise and swift data after such incidents.

Those killed in landslides are mainly itinerant workers who scratch a living picking through the piles of waste left by large-scale industrial mining firms in the hope of stumbling across a previously missed hunk of jade that will deliver them from poverty.

- Demand from China -

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world's finest jadeite, a near-translucent green stone that is enormously prized in neighbouring China, where it is known as the "stone of heaven".

The Hpakant landscape has been turned into a moonscape of environmental destruction as firms use ever-larger diggers to claw the precious stone from the ground.

But while mining firms -- many linked to the junta-era military elite -- are thought to be raking in huge sums, local people complain they are shut off from the bounty.

In an October report, advocacy group Global Witness estimated that the value of Myanmar jade produced in 2014 alone was $31 billion and said the trade might be the "biggest natural resource heist in modern history".

Much of the best jade is thought to be smuggled directly to China.

With little help from authorities, Hpakant community groups have pooled limited resources to help workers injured in the accidents which have become commonplace as the diggers creep closer to villages.

Heroin and methamphetamine are also easily and cheaply available on Hpakant's dusty streets, a side effect of Myanmar's massive narcotics trade.

Locals have launched desperate campaigns to try to persuade Myanmar's quasi-civilian government, which replaced outright military rule in 2015, to force mining firms to curtail their rapidly expanding operations.

But their pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy swept landmark November 8 elections and will form a new government early next year.

But it has not yet outlined any firm plans for the jade trade beyond pledges for a more equitable allocation of profits from the country's natural resources.

Analysts say reform will be difficult given the entrenched military interests in the trade and the remoteness of many of the mines, some of which are in the hands of ethnic rebel fighters.

[Mark]

Oregon: Landslide buckles Hwy 42, closing road indefinitely

http://koin.com/2015/12/26/landslide-buckles-hwy-42-closing-road-in...

ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) – The Oregon Department of Transportation says a landslide has buckled Oregon Highway 42, also known as the Coos Bay-Roseburg Highway.

The Oregonian reports the roadway in southern Oregon is expected to be closed indefinitely near the border of Coos and Douglas counties.

Authorities say the 200-to-300-foot-long slide has covered most of the two-lane state highway with mud and rock.

Jared Castle of the Oregon Department of Transportation says the roadway will be closed for at least a week, but it’s too early to say for certain.

The slide happened on Thursday afternoon on a section that has been involved in an effort to straighten out some severe curves along the Middle Fork of the Coquille River.

Heavy rain this month saturated the ground, defeating efforts at erosion control.

[Howard]

Massive Landslide in Southern British Columbia (Dec 16)

An earthquake last week in the B.C. Interior may have set off a large-scale landslide in the Whistler backcountry, according to local safety officials.

The slide took place last Wednesday, Dec. 16 on Fingerpost Ridge, a sub-ridge of Mount James Turner, east of Lesser Wedge Mountain. Early analysis indicates the slide was roughly three to four kilometres long and 0.75 kilometres at its widest point.

No threat to the public has been reported, although the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) is urging backcountry users in the area to use caution and be aware of unstable slope conditions.

Ryan Wainwright, emergency manager for the SLRD, said it's likely a 3.6-magnitude earthquake that struck near Kamloops in the early hours of Dec. 16 set off the slide.

"We don't usually dedicate a lot of resources to (geological events) that don't have an impact on people, but I do know that it's an unusual time of year to have a landslide that's triggered by anything other than an earthquake," Wainwright said.

The size of the slide came as a surprise to Whistler avalanche safety expert Wayne Flann.

"I've never seen something like this happen since I've been here, where a huge ridgeline collapses and creates a huge landslide like that," he said. "It's quite a big event."

Source

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/officials-say-earthquake-...

[Howard]

Fatal Landslide in Southern Peru (Dec 22)

A large landslide hit near the town of Tutumbaru on the road between Ayacucho and San Francisco, burying a boom truck and killing the driver. The body of the driver was later recovered but another person has been reported missing.

Approximately 12,000 cubic meters of mud and debris collapsed into the valley below.

Source

http://www.andina.com.pe/agencia/noticia-continua-limpieza-via-ayac...

[Scott]

Detecting Landslides from a Few Seismic Wiggles (12/18/15)
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/detecting-landslides-few-s...

See ZT quoted on Landslides blog mainpage:
Is there an early warning system that mankind could use? The trembles that soil about to slide emits could be detected, yes. These are not earthquakes, and have their own frequency.
http://zetatalk.com/ning/29mr2014.htm

Article highlights:

A 200 million ton landslide landed on the toe of Tyndall Glacier and in the water of Taan Fiord on Oct. 17 local time in Icy Bay, Alaska. It was detected by seismologists on the other side of the country. (NSF Polar Geospatial Center)

The rumbling started across Icy Bay at around 8:19 p.m. on Oct. 17, 2015. In the span of about 60 seconds, 200 million tons of rock roared down the side of Alaska’s Taan Fiord valley and crashed onto the toe of Tyndall Glacier and into the water, setting off a local tsunami big enough to register at the nearest tidal gauge 155 kilometers away.

No one was near the glacier to witness the massive landslide—the largest detected in North America since the collapse at Mount St. Helens—and it almost went unnoticed. Almost. Its signature appeared almost simultaneously in seismograms monitored by the Global CMT Project at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory on the other side of the country.

Over the last six years, Lamont seismologists Göran Ekström and Colin Stark have been perfecting a technique for picking out the seismic signature of large landslides from the stream of seismic data from earthquakes and other activity around the world. The details they are able to extract could one day help governments sound tsunami warnings, help rescuers find landslide-struck villages faster, and warn of risks such as landslide-dammed rivers that could soon burst through.

When computers detect earthquakes, they look for an abrupt start to seismic activity, typically a sharp, high-frequency burst. Landslides have a different signature that often goes undetected.

“Landslides start very gradually. They grow and they decay over the time period it takes for the mass to go all the way down, so this would be a minute or maybe two,” Ekström said. To pick out landslides, the scientists look for long-period seismic waves—seismic wiggles with a period of 50 seconds or so.

From those waves, Ekström and Stark are now able to discern the size of the landslide, which direction it was moving, its momentum, velocity and acceleration, as well as the precise time that the landslide struck. The data can usually get them within a few kilometers of the precise location, and satellite images—when clouds aren’t obstructing the view—can provide confirmation. Stark presented their new landslide discovery from Taan Fiord and described how they determine the forces involved in greater detail during the American Geophysical Union meeting today in San Francisco.

Comparison of the seismic signatures of a landslide and earthquake from events in the Himalayas on May 5, 2012. (Colin Stark and Göran Ekström)

The team at Lamont has analyzed about 50 massive landslides over the past six years, including several that had never been reported. Landslides associated with earthquakes can be difficult to pick out from all the seismic noise accompanying the slipping fault, but other landslides can be isolated. ...

An island in Taan Fiord, about 10 km from the landslide, shown by satellite in 2014 (left) and a few days after the landslide and tsunami (right). (GeoEye, Colin Stark)

“For the first few years, we were a little reticent to say we detected these giant landslides that no one else had noticed. How could they not notice?” Stark said. “It took us a while to be confident, but from analyzing about 50 of these, we have been able to constrain the physics and get the numbers—momentum, kinetic energy—we get dynamics that are impossible to get any other way. We have improved understanding of the physics of landslides.”

[Mark]

Landslide Buries Buildings in China’s Shenzhen

http://www.wsj.com/articles/landslide-buries-buildings-in-chinas-sh...

At least 18 buildings were buried at an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

Some 22 buildings have collapsed in a landslide at an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
About 900 people have been evacuated, with four people pulled alive from rubble with minor or no injuries, the local government said. No fatalities have been reported.
Shenzhen's fire brigade said it was working to free other trapped people. At least 27 remain missing.
Two workers' dormitories are among the affected buildings.
Shenzhen's public security bureau posted a notice online saying that eight hours after the landslide, 21 men and six women were unaccounted for, AP reports.
An area of 20,000 sq m (24,000 square yards) was covered with soil, the Public Security Bureau's firefighting bureau said.
Ren Jiguang, the deputy chief of Shenzhen's public security bureau, told state broadcaster CCTV that most people had been moved to safety before the landslide hit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-35144579

[KM]

http://www.thebigwobble.org/2015/12/avalanche-buries-houses-on-sval...

Avalanche buries houses on the Svalbard archipelago in the heart of the Norwegian Arctic: Unkown how many people missing

Several people were injured and several others missing on Saturday (Dec 19) after an avalanche buried about 10 houses on the Svalbard archipelago in the heart of the Norwegian Arctic, local officials said.
"Several people have been injured and hospitalised.
Some people are also missing," the region's government said on its website.
"All available human resources are mobilised for the rescue operation."
A spokesman for the rescue services said four adults and two children were hospitalised but that their injuries were not life threatening.
Around 10 brightly-coloured wooden houses, typical of the style found in the archipelago, were buried by the avalanche which happened at around 11am local time.
Witnesses said the snow had shifted the houses set on hillsides about 20m.
One resident, Ms Kine Bakkeli, told NRK public television that she had managed to escape through a window.
"It's complete chaos here," she said. Rescuers, police and residents using spades raced to clear houses buried under a thick layer of snow in the hope of finding the missing.
It was not known how many people were missing.
A team of doctors was planning to set out from the Norwegian city of Tromso for Longyearbyen, Svalbard's main town.
Emergency accommodation has been set up in a youth centre and the town's church.
Weather conditions have been harsh since Friday with authorities warning people to take care in high winds.

[Howard]

Catastrophic Lake Drain in Northern Canada (July 2015)

A lake in Canada's NWT burst through its melting embankment and sent tens of thousands of cubic meters of water crashing into a neighboring valley resulting in catastrophic flooding.

In a video released on Wednesday by the territorial government, the lake can be seen breaching a retaining wall weakened by thawing permafrost and dumping half its contents in a waterfall nearly five stories tall.

The drainage from the nameless lake, which is perched in the hills around the arctic hamlet of Fort McPherson, flowed several miles downstream into the Mackenzie River Delta and caused a slow slide of mud and debris that engulfed nearly two kilometers of the nearby landscape.

In June 2015, the NWT Geological Survey released a warning that the lake would fail catastrophically by the end of the year. On July 15, the slumping permafrost that held back the unnamed lake finally gave way.

Sources

https://news.vice.com/article/that-lake-that-was-going-to-fall-off-...

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2015/12/14/fort-mcpherson-a-cata...

[Mark]

Terrifying moment landslide crashes into roadside houses and pushes them towards busy traffic in China

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3354385/Terrif...

Drivers in Congjiang County, south China were metres away from being flattened when a landslide pushed two houses onto a busy road.

The incident was captured on November 8 by a surveillance camera that looks onto the road, reports The People’s Daily.

Luckily the owners were not at home. They have been relocated and there were no casualties reported.
As the cars are driving, on the left hand side of the footage small pieces of rubble can be seen crumbling from a house.

It only takes 30 seconds before both building collapse creating a huge pile of rubble on the road.

At first, cars drive around the falling rocks, but they soon came to a halt when several people on the street waved their hands and shouted at them to stop.

According to the report, the landslide was caused by continuous rain in the area.

One house was made out of bricks and the other was wooden, the force and weight from the mud and rocks was so strong they both collapsed.

Local authorities and traffic police rushed to the scene as soon as the buildings collapsed, and the road was cordoned off for traffic control.

Since the incident, dangerous areas have been blocked off and experts are continuously monitoring the activity of the mountain where the landslide came from.

Residents are being told not to go near the danger zones and drive carefully.

[Mark]

Watch: Massive landslide in Manali, National Highway blocked

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/watch-massi...

The vehicular traffic on the road came to a halt and hundreds of vehicles were stranded on either side of the blockades.

The Kiratpur-Manali National Highway was on Monday blocked due to a massive landslide near Hanogi in Mandi district of Himachal, about 180 Km from here. The vehicular traffic on the road came to a halt and hundreds of vehicles were stranded on either side of the blockades.
Additional District Magistrate Mandi Vivek Chandel said the Public Works Department (PWD) has pressed its teams into action to clear the blockade by deploying heavy machinery and JCBs. “Some breakthrough was made around this evening and some of the light vehicles were allowed to cross the damaged road portion but shooting stone from the mountain compelled the authorities to stop movement of the vehicles as this posed a grave risks to the lives of the passengers”, he told the Indian Express over phone. “Huge boulders suddenly started rolling down and within minutes the entire hill-lock came down sliding but fortunately no vehicle was crossing the road at that point of time and as such there was no loss of human life,” said state Public Works Department (PWD)officials.