Fears of another landslide and possible tsunami are mounting for the Anak Krakatoa volcano in the Sunda Strait, Indonesia. Scientists with Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) have discovered new cracks that could be an early indication of another landslide. These cracks are deep and wide enough to emit steam and ash. A violent explosion of the Krakatoa volcano triggered a deadly tsunami that struck Indonesia on December 22 that struck Java and Sumatra. A landslide formed by these cracks is estimated to be 67 million cubic meters compared to the estimated 90 million cubic meters from the December 22 event.
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Nachterstedt Landslide in Eastern Germany, Three People Believed Missing
A massive landslide in the little town of Nachterstedt in Eastern Germany early on Saturday morning local time caused two houses to vanish into a nearby lake. Three people are believed to have been in the buildings at the time of the slide. Rescue efforts are still on going and had to be halted during the night but were resumed the next morning. Helicopters with infrared cameras and dogs were used to find the missing people, but with no success so far. Approximately 60 residents of nearby buildings had to be evacuated and put up in emergency shelters. (Photo by Spiegel Online) [Editor] More after the break. [/Editor]
Sea to Sky Highway Landslide
Earlier this month, there was a massive slope failure on the "Sea to Sky" highway in British Columbia. It is interesting to note that this same area had a large rockslide in 1965, and a photo of this failure is featured on the cover of the classic text, Rock Slope Engineering by Hoek and Bray. The media played up the aspect that this highway is one of the only ways to access the site of the 2010 Winter Olympic games hosted by Vancouver.
The composite image above shows the book cover and the recent rockslide event (Photo credit: Erik Eberhardt of the University of British Columbia by way of Dave’s Landslide Blog). Dave has done a fabulous job collecting photos, facts and links from around the web. In a follow up post, he added some additional photos and discussion. I recently came across an article that described how the highway originally was slated to have a tunnel bypassing the slide, but that the price tag of $200 million (CAN?) for a 1-km stretch killed the project.