The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.
On 21 June 2024, a large landslide struck Sorte, a small hamlet in the Misox Valley of Switzerland, triggered by extremely intense rainfall. At the time of writing it is believed that three people have lost their lives, but two of them remain missing. One person was rescued.
Voice of America has a tweet that has multiple aerial views of the aftermath of this landslide:-
The location of the point at which this landslide meets the road is [46.29298, 9.17987]. The Google Earth image below shows the setting:-
Note the very steep terrain, with a large gully, behind the houses that have been destroyed, and the large fan on which the properties have been constructed. The landslide appears to have been a debris flow.
This is one of a large number of events that occurred across Switzerland and the alpine area of France late last week, driven by very intense rainfall. There are some remarkable videos of the events, including this terrifying debris flow that occurred close to Saint-Nicolas:-
It is hard to keep track of the landslides that are occurring across the world at the moment. The news today is reporting eight fatalities in a landslide in China, and two more in a different event in the same country, major mudflows in Kyrgyzstan, a big landslide on the flanks of Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia and significant landslides in Itanagar in India. My dataset of fatal landslides continues to record unprecedented numbers of events, with what is normally the main monsoon-driven landslide period yet to start in earnest.