Abstract
A large catastrophic landslide occurred on July 23, 2019, after a continuous heavy rainfall at Jichang (N 26°15′22.99″, E 104°40′6.33″), Shuicheng county, Guizhou province, China. This landslide had a maximum runout distance of 1295 m, a maximum falling height of 477 m between the highest point of the source area and the leading edge, and a maximum speed of 45.5 m/s. The 1.4 million cubic meters of debris instantly buried twenty-one buildings, destroyed six buildings, and resulted in 42 fatalities and 9 people missing. This paper analyzes the extent and mechanisms of initiation and runout distance of the landslide. The landslide occurred in the eluvial and deluvial accumulation of basalt, and its initiation mechanisms were different from the bedrock landslides that are typical of the interbedded soft and hard rocks in Guizhou and basalt landslides in Southwest China. The prolonged heavy rainfall, lush vegetation, and road construction played the roles in landslide initiation. Subsequently, the landslide can be divided into three sliding regions caused by the valley on both sides and the stepped terrain in the middle, and the valley topography enhanced the disaster intensity and reach.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Prof. Siming He from the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), for the images taken with the unmanned aerial vehicles and topographic post-landslide map.
Funding
This research was financially supported by the National Science Fund of China (Grant No. 41877524, 41971214), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1505401), the Opening Fund of Shock and Vibration of Engineering Materials, and Structures Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province (Grant No. 18kfgk10), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA 23090202), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41761144077), and the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program (Jiang Yuanjun).
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Fan, X., Tang, J., Tian, S. et al. Rainfall-induced rapid and long-runout catastrophic landslide on July 23, 2019 in Shuicheng, Guizhou, China. Landslides 17, 2161–2171 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01454-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01454-y