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Click on the links to read about landslides which have occurred throughout history.

Chiavenna Valley, Italy (1618, September 4)
About 2,420 people from two villages were lost in landslides.

Goldau Valley, Switzerland (1806, September 2)
A portion of Rossberg Peak broke off and fell into a central Switzerland valley, sweeping away four villages and taking 500 lives.

Philippines (1825)
A slip of mud and rock was triggered after the Mayon volcano erupted.

Himalayas, India (1880, September 18)
Naini was destroyed when part of a mountain collapsed. 230 people perished.

Elm, Switzerland (1881, September 11)
Open slate mines had existed for many generations on the side of Plattenberkopf Mountain, above Elm village. After heavy autumn rains, the eastern side of the mountain collapsed, stopping a few hundred yards before the Elm Inn without causing injuries. Seventeen minutes later, a huge rock and dirt mass from the west mountain face collided with the inn and four other buildings. Four minutes later, the entire upper part of the mountain, with about 10 million cubic yards of rock and earth, tumbled into the valley, across the basin floor, and 300 yards up the other side. 900,000 square yards of the village were covered with rubble reaching 10 to 20 feet. 115 people were killed.

St. Gervais, Switzerland (1892, July 12)
A muddy avalanche swept away thirty houses and 140 people.

Trondheim, Norway (1893, May 19)
Heavy rains washed into a deep valley in Norway, turning some 60 million cubic yards of “quick clay” (fine siltlike particles soluble in water) into liquid form. Sweeping through towns and villages, this mudslide destroyed farms and killed 111 people. Some farmhouses were carried more than 3 miles on a river of earth.

Macon & Aix-les-Bains, England (1896, October 17)
A landslide buried 48 railway workers.

Quebec, Canada (1898, September 21)
A landslide caused 7 structures to fall. 30 people perished.

Darjeeling, India (1899, September 23-24)
A storm triggered a landslide that killed 310 people.

Frank, Alberta (1903, April 29)
Turtle Mountain over the town of Frank was made of limestone blocks, with its lower slopes consisting of soft stone and coal. Without warning, a half-mile-square section of limestone, 500 feet thick and 50 to 90 million tons heavy, broke off and slid 3,100 feet, across the 2 ½-mile-wide valley, and ascended up the other side. 70 villagers were instantly killed. The landslide sealed a mine entrance at the mountain base, trapping 20 workers inside. The men escaped, digging a new tunnel to the surface within forty-eight hours.

Spence’s Bridge, Canada (1905, August 14)
A large landslide struck a village located on the Canadian Pacific Railway, killing 30 people.

Haverstram, New York (1906, January 9)
A large landslide buried eight houses and killed 22 people.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1906, March 17)
A landslide killed 20 people.

Virginia, Minnesota, USA (1910, March 11)
A landslide buried 26 workers in an open-pit mine.

Kansu, China (1920, December 16)
An earthquake near the Tibetan border was felt through some 30,000 square miles of western China. Huge landslides were caused throughout the area, which was mostly barren, treeless hills and high loess banks. Loess, or silt mixed with clay and fine sand, sustains plant life only in its uppermost few feet. The loess banks of China were formed over millennia from yellow dust from the Gobi Desert, carried on the wind. Thousands of peasants lived in cave dwellings, carved into the sides of 100-foot-high clay cliffs and hills framing the riverbanks. After the earthquake, these cliffs were sheared off along deep vertical faults and sent falling into river valleys, destroying more than 100 cities, countless villages, and killing more than 180,000. In one valley, only a man andhis two sons survived. Their entire farmstead broke off a cliff and floated down the long valley on a river of liquefied clay and debris. Today, that day is still known as Shan Tso-liao, or “When the mountains walked.” The Kansu landslide is the worst in recorded history.

San Fratello, Sicily (1922, January 11)
A landslide took hundreds of lives when it destroyed the town of San Fratello.

Nebukawa, Japan (1923, September 1)
Nebukawa, a fishing village in a small cove near Sagami Bay, was located in a deep mountain valley below a 120-foot-high five-span railway trestle that extended across the valley, linking a tunnel on one mountain to a station on the other face. Before noon, a southbound train at the station was waiting for the northbound to arrive. At that moment, an earthquake hit, causing severe damage to the Tokyo region. Landslides triggered in the mountains above Sagami Bay, and the cliff under the station collapsed, sending trains and terminals into the water. On the opposite mountain, the tunnel collapsed, blocking the other train’s path. The passengers escaped on foot from the tunnel’s mouth, but at that instant another landslide flew down the valley. It tore out the bridge and carried debris and villagers into the ocean.

Gros Ventre, Wyoming, USA (1925, June 23)
Southeast of Grand Teton National Park is an area with low, round-shaped mountains, red sandstone, and shale. After a period of heavy rain, nearby landslides crashed about 50,000 cubic yards of earth and debris into the Gros Ventre River, creating a natural 350-foot-high dam. On May 18, 1927, two years later, this dam was breached. Water flowed down to flood and annihilate the town of Kelly. Fortunately, the residents had already been evacuated.

Sarajevo, Bosnia (1926, July 17)
A landslide buried a train, killing 117 people.

Pereira, Colombia (1926, November 5)
A landslide dammed the River Otun, flooding nearby villages. 100 people perished and 60 were injured.

Madeira Island (1929, March 6)
40 people perished and many were injured.

Seville, Colombia (1929, June 18)
A landslide changed the course of the Quicace River, flooding the city of Seville and taking 40 lives.

Northern Anatolia, Turkey (1929, July 22)
1,000 people perished in landslides and earthquakes.

Manizales, Colombia (1930, November 18)
A landslide blocked the Augacatal River. There were 32 casualties.

Huigra, Ecuador (1931, February 14)
A landslide struck and killed 190 people working on the Guayaquil and Quito Railroad.

Jeypore, India (1931, October 20)
30 people perished.

Lyons, France (1932, May 8)
2 apartment houses were destroyed by a landslide that killed 27 people.

Sharlin, Korea (1932, August 8)
A landslide killed 22 people when it struck a small village.

Chiclayo, Peru (1933, April 13)
A landslide destroyed the city, taking 20 lives.

Banyitsa, Yugoslavia (1934, February 5)
A landslide hit Banyitsa, Yugoslavia, killing 30 quarry workers.

Norway (1934, April 7)
A cliff fell into a fjord and took hundreds of lives.

Kwantung Province, China (1934, May 23-24)
Landslides struck Kwantung Province, China, killing 500 citizens.

Los Angeles, California, USA (1938, March 2)
200 deaths came as a result of flooding and landslides in the area.

Oakwood, Virginia, USA (1942, July 21)
A coal waste pile on a steep hill slid into the Oakwood river valley, causing eight deaths. One of the victims drowned in the river after fleeing the landslide.

Khait, Tadzhikistan (1949)
Unreliable records report 12,000 people, the entire Khait population, died from converging landslides triggered by earthquakes. The Pamir Mountain region has since become an extremely active site for Russian earthquake prediction research.

Hebgen Lake, Montana, USA (1959, August 17)
After midnight, an earthquake rocked the Yellowstone National Park region, causing a 2,000-foot-long, 1,300-foot-wide ridge section to fall into the Madison River Canyon. The landslide itself killed 19 campers along the river (28 people died in all), making a natural dam that filled the canyon with water. Cottages, forests, campsites, and Highway 287 were submerged beneath 100 feet of water. The waters created a new lake, Earthquake Lake, that reached back many miles toward Hebgen Lake. This naturally landslide-created dam is still there today, and spillways have been made across the top. New homes and campsites are also situated around Earthquake Lake.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1966, January 11-13)
Heavy rains caused mountain landslides behind the city of Rio de Janeiro, taking 550 lives. Another 4 million people were influenced by transportation, communication, and system disruptions.

Aberfan, Wales (1966, October 21)
Mine owners had dumped waste on a large slag tipple behind the village of Aberfan for more than 50 years. Every time it rained, a sticky black mud would wash down from the waste heap into the streets and into the new elementary school. Citizens complained, but their pleas were ignored by the National Coal Board, who said it “would be far too expensive to dispose of the waste in any other way.” The heap continued to grow to a height of 111 feet. Finally, after being lubricated by heavy rains, the entire thing slipped down 600 feet, swept over the school and eight buildings, and killed 144. 116 of these were school-age children.

Chungar, Peru (1971, March 18)
More than 200 died after a landslide crashed into Lake Yanahuani, making a 60-foot-high wave that destroyed the mining ton of Chungar in the Pasco District of the Andes Mountains.

Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec (1971, May 4)
Millennia ago, the area around Quebec’s Saguenay River was part of the Champlain Sea, an inland ocean that has now become the size of a lake. The earth in this region is an ancient marine clay form that liquefies under stress or heavy moisture saturation. After a record winter snow period, at 11 p.m. on May 4, about 90 million cubic yards of soil under a 100-foot-high cliffside housing development collapsed and slipped 1.8 miles before stopping in the middle of the Saguenay River. Thirty-one died and 40 houses were ruined.

Montevallo, Alabama, USA (1972, December 2)
The largest sinkhole ever in U.S. history, nicknamed “The December Giant,” collapsed in a wooded area. It measured 425 feet long, 350 feet wide, 150 feet deep, and was found by hunters two days after someone reported hearing a roaring noise, trees breaking, and his house shaking.

Canyonville, Oregon (1974, January 16)
A 125-foot-wide, 400-foot-long mudslide destroyed a concrete relay station at the foot of the east wall of Canyon Creek, Oregon. Nine men, working inside at the time, were buried. The slide pushed the 15-by-20-foot concrete structure into the creek, filling the entire canyon with earth.

Huancavelica Province, Peru (1974, April 26)
A landslide on the Mantaro River made a one-mile-long, 300-yard-wide, 20-yard-high natural dam that created an 8-mile-long lake. The landslide destroyed about 12 small villages, killing up to 300 people. 9,000 others were evacuated. The slide was caused by heavy rains in the area, 230 miles southeast of Lima. Repairs to the Huancayo-Ayacucho Highway made up most of the $5 million in property damage.

Eastern Colombia (1974, June 28)
Earth and rocks fell onto the highway in Quebrada Blanca Canyon, 95 miles east of Bogotá. 200 perished on the eastern Andes slopes, many trapped in three buses that were pushed off the mountain road and into the river on the canyon floor.

Esmeraldas, Ecuador (1976, February)
Seven days of heavy rains caused landslides that buried 100 people.

Fresno, Colombia (1976, May 2)
A small landslide covered the main east-west road across the Colombian Andes, stopping traffic. As vehicles waited for crews to clear the way, another slide struck the area, burying four cars and 13 people who left their buses to look at the original damage.

Teresopolis, Brazil (1977, January 28)
Mudslides were started by twelve hours of heavy thunderstorms. The earth and debris carried more than a dozen shacks sliding down the slopes, killing 27and injuring another 60.

Los Angeles, California, USA (1977)
A 20-foot-high wall of mud brought debris down the San Gabriel Mountains, killing 13 and destroying houses, trees, cars, and anything else in its path.

Niigata, Japan (1978, May 18)
Over a thousand soldiers, firemen, and rescuers stood and watched helplessly as a river of mud, containing 13 bodies, flowed past them. Apparently, a mudslide hit the Myoko Kogen Machi ski resort before dawn, taking a dozen buildings with people still inside. Slippage of structures and earth continued for several days, making it rescue attempts difficult.

Teheran, Iran (1978, May 24)
A passenger train going from Teheran and Gorgan, a Caspian Sea resort, was hit by a landslide just as it entered a mountain tunnel. 20 people were killed and another 40 injured.

Darjeeling, India (1980, September 8)
Boulders and earth were loosened by heavy monsoon rains and sent tumbling down the Himalayan slopes into the tea-growing region of Darjeeling. 250 people were killed and another 30,000 were trapped in high mountain areas.

Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA (1980)
The eruption of Mount St. Helens triggers mudflows and rock avalanches that cover 24 square miles 100 feet deep with earth and debris.

Sichuan Province, China (1981, early October)
Over 240 people died after heavy rains sent landslides tumbling down from the local mountains. Another 100,000 were made homeless by the slides and subsequent flooding.

Colombia (1985)
Volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted, causing a mudslide that killed over 2,000 people.

Iran (1990)
An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale causes mud slides that bury towns, roads, and take 50,000 lives.

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