2 vehicles, water supply connections damaged due to landslide in Sanjauli

Two vehicles were damaged due to a landslide that occurred in Engine Ghar area in Shimla's Sanjauli. At least 35 water supply connections were also damaged in the incident, due to which supply in the area was disrupted.No casualty was reported 

The incident occurred on Tuesday, when debris fell on vehicles parked on the roadside. While one vehicle was damaged completely, another car was partially damaged.

Officials from the Public Works Department reached the spot and removed debris from the site. Ankush Verma, Councillor, Engine Ghar, said that the restoration work is ongoing. He said there was a possibility that a tree near the site could also collapse. "We will request the authorities to permit its lopping. Water supply connections that were damaged in the incident are also being restored," he said.

July 31, 2024 Earlier this week, multiple landslides hit the Wayanad district of India’s Kerala state, killing at least 144 people and injuring hundreds of others. The landslides were caused by torrential rains that lasted for days, uprooting trees, burying villages and cutting off roads and communication lines.

In the morning of 22 July 2024, a pair of landslides struck Gofa Zone in Ethiopia. News reports indicate that at least 55 people have been killed, whilst it is thought that more people are likely to have been buried. Reuters has an early news report about the landslide, whilst the Ethiopian Broadcasting Committee has posted some images of the landslide on Facebook.

Interestingly, news reports include a variety of images, some of which are clearly from other incidents. I am unsure as to which is correct, but I am assuming that the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation is most likely to be reporting faithfully.

The location is reported to have been Kencho Shacha Gozdi, Gofa Zone, Geze Gofa District. Gofa Zone is in the area of [6.4167, 36.9167], but the precise location is unclear.

Reports indicate that the incident was triggered by heavy rainfall. An initial landslide is thought to have buried a number of local people, possibly at around 5 am. Rescue operations, involving people from outside the immediate area, were underway at about 10 am when the second landslide occurred, again burying an unknown number of people.

If the image above is correct, then the failure is in deeply weathered soil, possibly with the failure initiating in the mid-slope area, and then entraining material from the lower slope. It is notable that the slope has been deforested.

The perils of secondary failures, which overwhelm responders to landslides, are insufficiently documented.

Meanwhile, the first very major damaging typhoon of the season, named Gaemi, has formed in the west Pacific and is now heading towards the northwest. Current estimates suggest that it will make landfall in NE Taiwan on 24 July. The forecast track will take the eye close to the area affected by the 3 April 2024 Mw=7,4 earthquake. As Typhoon Gaemi will generate large amounts of rainfall, we are likely to see landslides and debris flows in the earthquake affected area, especially Taroko National Park, over the next few days. This will be very perilous.