Planet Labs image of the 13 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi village, in the Democratic Republic of Congo

A new satellite image confirms that over 15 houses were buried in a landslide that took the lives of almost 30 people.

Back on 15 January, I wrote about the 3 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi village, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This landslide killed 28 people and injured 20 more.

This is a remote area, so getting detailed information about the location is very challenging. It is also very cloudy, limiting satellite imagery. However, on 21 January 2028, Planet Labs captured an image of the area using one of their Super Dove instruments. This is the image, draped onto the Google Earth DEM:-

This is a Google Earth image from 2024 of the same area:-

And here is a slider to compare the two:-

This is a Google Earth image of the affected are in more detail:-

There is nothing obvious in the imagery to suggest that this slope was dangerous, noting of course the masking effect of the dense forest. As reported in the media, the landslide buried about 17 houses and closed the road.

The imagery clarifies the location of the landslide – it’s at [-1.30050, 28.66080].

Acknowledgement

Thanks as ever to the kind people at Planet Labs for providing access to their amazing imagery.

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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