Friday, May 18, 2012

When the land flows like water


There was a major landslide in southern Switzerland earlier this week.  One news report stated:  "300,000 cubic meters [about 10.6 million cubic feet or over 392,000 cubic yards] of rock slid down. No damage occurred from that rockfall, however there are 500,000 more cubic meters [about 17.7 million cubic feet or almost 654,000 cubic yards] of debris that still threatens to come down."

I was amazed to see this video clip of part of the incident.  It's astonishing to see rocks and trees flow as if they were merely foam on top of water!




I don't quite know what they mean by 'no damage occurred' . . . several farm buildings are shown, damaged by the landslide.  I hope no-one was killed or injured in them.  I daresay those farms will never be worked again!





Peter

5 comments:

Toejam said...

Looks like more than a few trees got damaged as well.

Anyone know where exactly this is?

I've spent some time in Southern Switzerland near the Italian border and wonder if this is the area I was in.

Peter said...

According to the linked news report, it was near the village of Preonzo in the canton of Ticino.

Anonymous said...

Once they get the area stablized, if possible, they can have a new ski resort.

Old NFO said...

Yep, just shows how unstable mountains REALLY are... That dirt and those trees DO look like they are water borne...

Anonymous said...

Land slides are liquid in a sense, that is, they follow the laws of fluid flow much as volcanic ash-flows (nuee ardent/ pyroclastic flows) do.

LittleRed1