The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.
On 11 August 2023, a substantial debris flow occurred at Weiziping Village, which is located in Chang’an District in Shaanxi Province, China. At the time of writing, it had been confirmed that 21 people have been killed, with a further six missing with little chance of their having survived.
Across a swathe of China there is a series of warnings in place for intense rainfall, and associated “geological disasters”, including in parts of Liaoning, Jilin, Guizhou, and Xinjiang, so it is likely that we will see further serious incidents in the coming days.
The location of this accident appears to be in the area of [33.96396 , 108.83970], although this needs to be confirmed. Sky News Australia has a news report on Youtube with a video that shows the aftermath:
And here is the view from a different angle:
This appears to show a typical steep catchment that has suffered a channelised debris flow event.
This is the second:-
Xinhua has a gallery of images too, which focus on the exhausted, heroic rescuers. As I have noted previously, this is the standard playbook in the aftermath of disasters in China.
The rate of landslide accidents globally continues to be remarkably high. In Myanmar, there are reports of yet another jade mine landslide in the Hpakant area. It seems that 34 people are missing and that a further eight were injured. Meanwhile, at Shimla in India there are reports of a landslide-induced temple collapse, which killed at least nine people.