The image of this failed bauxite tailings dam is very tragic and the pictures of the impact to the local town are very sad. But one thing that struck me about this particular image is how it appears that the failure occurred at the corner of the tailings impoundment. How many of us geotechnical engineers would have analyzed the corner? Most of the time you would pick a cross-section that appears to be conservative and go with that. Maybe you analyze both sides, but likely not the corner. I wonder what happened in this case…interesting. [Source: Dave’s Landslide Blog. Image: Dave’s Landslide Blog]
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More Movement on La Jolla Landslide
For those of you following the landslide in residential La Jolla California known as the Soledad Mountain Road landslide, it made the news again a couple days ago when a section of the slide re-activated and slid 10-ft down the hill. Doesn’t sound like too big of a deal to me, no additional houses damaged. I’m curious how it related to the shear pins they installed a couple of months ago.
Additionally, the San Diego City Attorney has released a report detailing the sequence of events leading up to the landslide. One interesting note is that the Mayor of San Diego is in hot water with the City Attorney’s office for hiring outside legal council to handle the legal aspects of the landslide. According to the City Attorney’s office, he wasn’t allowed to do that, but so far the City Attorney hasn’t stepped in to force the outside attorney(s) to drop the case saying it would open the City up to even more liability.