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The 19 July 2025 landslide at Sangneung village in South Korea

The aftermath of the 19 July 2025 landslide at Sangneung village.

On 19 July 2025, record-breaking rainfall triggered a landslide that destroyed 26 buildings. Plans are now being developed to permanently relocate the community.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

On 19 July 2025, parts of South Korea suffered record-breaking rainfall. Flooding and landslides were the inevitable outcome. One location that was particularly severely impacted was a small rural village called Sangneung, which is located in Saengbi-riang-myeon, Sangcheong. It is incredibly difficult to track down village locations in South Korea, but after a lot of work I think it is at [35.38269, 128.05740].

This landslide has attracted considerable attemtion because of the damage it has inflicted. There is a good news report that includes a drone video of the site on Youtube:-

The drone footage starts at 00:33.

This image, released by the local government, also shows the site:-

The aftermath of the 19 July 2025 landslide at Sangneung village.
The aftermath of the 19 July 2025 landslide at Sangneung village. Image released by Sancheong County.

There is a good reflective piece on the plight of the inhabitants of Sancheong, outlining why the village is now longer viable. A decision has now been taken to permanently relocate the village, and detailed plans are being developed.

This is an unusual intervention, but it is hard to argue that it is not the correct one.

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On the growth of research in landslides

The number of outputs using the keyword "landslide" in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.

Since 1994 there has been a 32 times increase in the number of research outputs with the keyword “landslide”.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

In a couple of weeks time, I have the pleasure of being one of the invited speakers at the Landslide Risk and Geoengineering (LaRGE) Conference in Queenstown, New Zealand. Ahead of that presentation, I’ve been using Scopus to look at the growth of research in landslides since 1994, the year that I submitted my PhD thesis.

This graph, from Scopus, shows the number of research outputs per year that use the keyword “landslide”. It is simple and unfiltered:-

The number of outputs using the keyword "landslide" in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.
The number of outputs using the keyword “landslide” in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.

The extraordinary growth in productivity is clear – to put it into context, in 1994 the number of outputs was 182; in 2025, it was 5,875, a 32x increase. This is a remarkable improvement in the volume of our understanding of landslides, although it does not say anything about paradigm change.

It is interesting to look at some of the key publications for landslide research:-

The number of outputs using the keyword "landslide" for selected key publications in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.
The number of outputs using the keyword “landslide” for selected key publications in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.

The journal Landslides started in 2004 and has shown remarkable growth (although note it still represents a tiny proportion of the total outputs per year). There are also large increases in the journals Natural Hazards and Engineering Geology, and a smaller increase for journal Geomorphology. On the other hand, those journals that traditionally would have been associated with landslide research, such as QJEGH, Canadian Geotechnical Journal and Geotechnique, have remained essentially static over time.

I suspect that this represents a growth in the academic areas researching landslides, and in particular a diversification from geotechnical engineering to a much more broader range of research that encompasses people with an interest in geomorphology, remote sensing, geophysics and natural hazards.

There is one other element that is important here too, which is the growth of landslide research in China. This graph shows the same data as above but with China as the national affiliation of one or more author:-

The number of outputs using the keyword "landslide" and with an affiliation from China in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.
The number of outputs using the keyword “landslide” and with an affiliation from China in the period 1994 to 2025 inclusive, via Scopus.

The growth in landslide research productivity in China is explosive over the last ten years, and with 2,616 outputs in 2025, Chinese affiliated authors are now producing over 55% of the world’s landslide research. There is no doubt as to where the centre of gravity now lies in landslide science.

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The Cheekeye Debris Barrier Project

A render of the completed Cheekeye Debris Barrier.

In British Columbia a CAN$115 million project is almost complete to mitigate the risk posed by debris flows to the town of Squamish.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

Upstream of the town of Squamish in British Columbia, Canada, an extraordinary project is underway to mitigate the risk of debris flows. Known as the Cheekeye Debris Barrier Project, the scheme involves the construction of a concrete barrier that is 24 metres high across the Cheekeye Fan, designed to catch debris flows with a volume up to 2.4 million cubic metres of debris.

The project is almost complete, with hand-over expected in the summer of this year. There is an excellent article about the project on The Tyee website, which includes some very interesting images of the structure. The estimated cost of the project is around CAN$115 million. The location of the Cheekeye Debris Barrier Project is [49.79417, 1123.10878]. This is a render of the final form of the barrier (but take a look at the images of the almost completed structure too):

A render of the completed Cheekeye Debris Barrier.
A render of the completed Cheekeye Debris Barrier. Image via the District of Squamish.

This is a fascinating project that makes a great case study for teaching, not least because both the detailed design considerations and the regulatory process for approving the programme are available in detail.

In terms of the detailed design considerations, there is an excellent open access paper in the Canadian Geotechnical Journal (Lesueur et al. 2025) that provides a very comprehensive analysis of the estimation of the potential volume and mobility of the debris flows on the Cheekeye Fan, and of the considerations that went into the final deisign of the structure.

In terms of the approval process, the District of Squamish has an online archive of documents and Council minutes that extends back to 2003.

I would highlight the challenges around determining the optimal size of a barrier of this type. The team has been balancing risk against cost, following the principle as outlined in Lesueur et al. (2025):-

“The local government specifies that tolerable debris-flow risks be reduced “as low as reasonably practicable” (ALARP), defined in this project as the point where the cost of additional mitigation measures is grossly disproportionate to the benefits gained.”

Thus, the barrier is not designed to stop the maximum credible debris flow, which is 5.5 million cubic metres (more than double the design event). This is pragmatic engineering at its best, and the Cheekeye Debris Barrier Project provides the level of detail that allows the decision-making process to be fully understood.

Reference

LeSueur, P. et al. 2026. Risk-informed design of debris-flow mitigation at Cheekeye FanCanadian Geotechnical Journal62: 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2023-0008

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The landslide drivers of structural damage in Medellin, Colombia

Google Earth image of the Manrique neighbourhood of Medellin in Colombia.

A new study (Vega et al. 2026) shows that patterns of reported structural damage in Medellin are probably caused by deep-seated deformation driven by a series of ancient landslides under the city.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

Medellin is the second largest metropolitan area in Colombia, with a population of around 4 million people. It has grown rapidly, expanding into the surrounding hillsides, with many unplanned and informal communities on steep slopes. Landslides are a common problem.

The rapid rate of growth has been accompanied with many reports of structural failures in buildings, with a general (and not unreasonable) assumption that these are associated with poor construction quality. But a fascinating new study (Vega et al. 2026) in the journal Landslides challenges this assumption in a most interesting way. The headline from the study is that there is a strong correlation between areas that have a high density of reports of structural damage and ground deformation driven by large, deep-seated landslides.

Vega et al. (2026) have used InSAR to map ongoing displacements across Medellin. In three key areas (Doce de Octubre, Manrique and Villa Hermosa) they detected high rates of ground deformation. They were able to show that these areas correspond to mappable deep-seated landslides. An example is in the Manrique neighbourhood of Medellin:-

Google Earth image of the Manrique neighbourhood of Medellin in Colombia.
Google Earth image of the Manrique neighbourhood of Medellin in Colombia.

Interpretation of pre-urbanisation imagery suggests that the topography underlying Manrique includes a series of deep-seated landslides. The InSAR data indicate that these areas are actively deforming, and these deformation zones correspond to areas with a high density of reports of structural damage. Interestingly, the density of damage reports does not correlate with the style of construction of the buildings.

Vega et al. (2026) also note that many of the recent acute landslide events in recent years also lie within these areas of high underlying ground deformation. Fore example, the 24 June 2025 landslide that killed 27 people lies within an area highlighted by the InSAR analysis.

This study highlights two key things for me. First, it is a novel and interesting application of InSAR in an urban setting, allowing the underlying processes that are driving structural damage in the city to be understood. Second, the study highlights the underlying vulnerability of Medellin to deep-seated slope processes. As the climate continues to change, and human processes modify the landscape and the groundwater, management of these slopes would seem to be a high priority.

Reference

Vega, J., Aristizábal, E., Ospina, A. et al. 2026. Neighbourhoods in motion: unveiling the drivers behind structural damage hotspots in Medellín (Colombia)Landslides (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-026-02758-1

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Landslides in Art Part 36:  The Great Landslide of 1664 of Runswick Bay on The day Village That Slipped into the Sea by “Jotter”

The Great Landslide of 1664 of Runswick Bay on The day Village That Slipped into the Sea by "Jotter"

The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

I’ve not posted about Landslides in Art much in recent years – the most recent edition was almost two years ago – but loyal readers will know that this is a long running series of posts.

Anyway, I came across a page recently about the major landslide that struck the village of Runswick Bay in North Yorkshire. It includes a painting of the village with the above name, by an artist who signed themselves as “Jotter”. The painting is now in the collection of the Kirkleatham Museum:-

The Great Landslide of 1664 of Runswick Bay on The day Village That Slipped into the Sea by "Jotter"
The Great Landslide of 1664 of Runswick Bay on The day Village That Slipped into the Sea by “Jotter”. The painting is held by the Kirkleatham Museum.

Now, there is a twist in that the landslide actually occurred in 1662, not 1664!

Runswick Bay is a picture postcard village in North Yorkshire of the UK, located at [54.53356, -0.75015]. The coastal part of the village is built on landslide debris, and there has been some movement in recent decades. In the late 1990s a very large scheme was put in place to mitigate the ongoing movement.

This is a Google Earth view of the village:-

Google Earth view of Runswick Bay.
Google Earth view of Runswick Bay.

The Tees Valley Museums site describes the landslide of 1662, noting that there were two major failure events. It is very fortunate that no-one was killed. The village was essentially destroyed and then rebuilt to the south of the original site.

It is probably true to say that the painting by Jotter is not a classic, but it does capture some interesting aspects of the site. First, it appears that the morphology is that of an existing landslide mass – this was probably a reactivation rather than a first time failure. Second, the toe was actively eroding, so maybe the two phase failure involved a collapse at the toe, which then destabilised the mass upslope? This would fit the eyewitness reports. Finally, note the mass in the background, which is also the result of a series of failure events.

There are many other major landslides along this section of coast – it is a classic area of UK mass movement geology. And it is truly beautiful too – visit if you can.

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Fatalities from landslides in earthquakes

An earthquake triggered landslide from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

A new study (Sun et al. 2026) shows that in six earthquakes in China between 2010 and 2022, landslides and rockfalls were responsible for at least half of the total fatalities.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

It is well-established that landslides are a major cause of loss of life in earthquakes in mountainous areas. The seismology maxim that “it is not earthquakes that kill people, it’s collapsing buildings” does not apply in its pure form in mountains – landslides also kill large numbers of people.

An earthquake triggered landslide from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.
An earthquake triggered landslide from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

However, the actual number of people killed by landslides in earthquakes is poorly understood. This is largely due to the challenges of collecting reliable information in the aftermath of a major earthquake, when the focus is on rescue and recovery rather than data collection. For this reason, many studies of landslide fatalities do not include seismically-triggered events. This is true of my own work.

However, a study has just been published (Sun et al. 2026) in the journal Natural Hazards Review that starts to address this issue. The paper nominally examines fatalities from all causes from earthquakes in China from 2001 to 2022. However, the authors note that the data has low reliability until 2010, so I’ll focus on the period from 2010 to 2022. I also note that the authors use the term “geological hazards“, which is a little broader than landslides. I should note that the paper isa broad look at fatalities from earthquakes – there is a much richer range of analyses than I will cover here.

In the period from 2010 to 2022, Sun et al. (2026) identified 14 earthquakes in which geological hazards caused loss of life. In some cases, the impacts were substantial. Thus, the M=6.5 3 August 2014 earthquake at Ludian in Yunnan led to 134 fatalities and 40 people missing from geological hazards from a total of 728 fatalities (c.24 % of the total), whilst the 5 September 2022 M=6.8 earthquake at Luding in Sichuan led to 76 geological hazard fatalities and 25 missing from a total of 118 fatalities (c.86% of the total). In six of the 14 examples, geological hazards caused at least 50% of the fatalities.

Sun et al. (2026) highlight that “fatalities from geological hazards concentrate in geologically complex, mountainous provinces, i.e., Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, Guangxi, and Guizhou”. They note that even small events can trigger fatal landslides – for example, six people were killed in a rockfall triggered by a M=4.3 earthquake in Guizhou in 2010, whilst a M=2.8 aftershock from the Yanjin earthquake in 2006 triggered a rockfall that killed a person.

This is an incredibly useful study. It starts to shed light on the impact of landslides in large earthquakes. It is not the definitive study, and questions remain – not least, the pattern of landslide losses in very large earthquakes, like the 2010 Wenchuan event, in which landslides were ferocious. But it forms the basis for such investigations, starting to fill a major gaps in our understanding.

Reference

Sun, B. et al. 2026. Causes Analysis of Earthquake-Related Deaths in Mainland China 2001–2022. Natural Hazards Review, 27 [2]. https://doi-org.ntu.idm.oclc.org/10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-2458

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Landslides are New Zealand’s most expensive natural hazard, and the costs are rising quickly

Here be landslides - typical landslide-prone terrain in New Zealand.

New evidence from the Natural Hazards Commission – Toka Tū Ake (NHC) shows that landslides are now New Zealand’s most costly natural hazard.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

New Zealand is a country that is prone to a range of natural hazards. Located on a series of major fault systems, earthquakes cause high levels of loss. The country is also volcanically active, with occasional tragedies. Heavy rainfall brings floods.

To share the cost of these perils, following the 1942 Wairarapa earthquakes, the New Zealand government established the Earthquake Commission (EQC) in 1945, initially focusing on earthquakes and war damage, but subsquently expanded to cover other natural hazards.

In the subsequent years, the EQC has evolved into the Natural Hazards Commission – Toka Tū Ake (NHC), with a purpose “to reduce the impact of natural hazards on people, property, and the community”. Essentially it operates as a financial pool, with home owners paying a levy on top of their insurance to generate the fund. In the event of a loss, the fund pays for the rebuild costs up to a cap (currently NZ$300,000); the remainder is then covered by the property’s insurance. Claims are funded directly from the pool, with reinsurance cover and ultimately a government guarantee in place to ensure that there are sufficient funds.

In reality, NHC does much more than this, acting to manage and settle claims, and to understand the range of hazards to which New Zealand is prone.

In the last few days, a range of media outlets in New Zealand have been reporting new data from NHC about losses from natural hazards in New Zealand. This is the headline from 1News:

“Landslides are New Zealand’s most expensive natural hazard – and new data reveals a sharp rise in damage claims and growing risks to homes, infrastructure and communities.”

In total, since 2021 NHC has received 13,000 landslide claims and has paid out NZ$322 million (US$191 million). New Zealand is seeing an abrupt increase in landslide losses, driven primarily by increasingly frequent high magnitude rainfall events. NHC is urging property owners to undertake preventative maintenance and to be aware of the limitations of EQC cover.

Here be landslides - typical landslide-prone terrain in New Zealand.
Here be landslides – typical landslide-prone terrain in New Zealand.

In common with many other places, these landslide hazards represent a major challenge to New Zealand. The landscape has many dormant landslides that are being reactivated by these increased rainfall events, and many new failures are also occurring. But, generating reliable risk maps for landslides remains a major challenge. This needs to be a major research focus in the coming years. It will require better understanding of triggering events (rainfall and earthquakes primarily); of the initiation processes within the slope; of runout / debris mobility; and of vulnerability and consequent losses. It is probably true to say that in all of these areas, landslide research lags behind that of earthquakes and floods, primarily because of a lack of long term investment.

In many countries, landslides are not an insured risk for this reason. On its own, this will be a major challenge that must be addressed. For those countries in which landslides are insured, we need quickly to get up to speed.

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The prospects for the 2026 monsoon in South Asia

The WMO 2026 South Asia monsoon forecast.

Forecasts for the 2026 South Asia monsoon are for below average rainfall, but some of the most landslide prone areas of India may receive totals that are above average.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

As usual, we are now starting to see the number of reported global fatal landslides increase as the northern hemisphere rainy season commences. In recent days, there have been fatal floods and landslides across several provinces of mainland China as well as landslides on the pilgrimage route to Kederath in northern India.

The global pattern is dominated by the South Asia (southwest / summer) monsoon, so it is interesting at this point to to consider the prospects for this year. The monsoon itself is expected to start in SW India next week, timing that is normal. It will then build over the following month or so.

The current forecast for the monsoon itself is that the total rainfall is likely to be below average. This is the WMO forecast:-

The WMO 2026 South Asia monsoon forecast.
The WMO 2026 South Asia monsoon forecast from the WMO.

The map shows below average precipitation for much of South Asia. The IMD also forecasts below average rainfall.

Of course, in landslide terms we are interested mainly in SW India (Kerala), which has a below average forecast, and the mountainous areas of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Much of this is also forecast to receive below average precipitation, but note the above average forecast for parts of northern India (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh) and NE India (Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh). These are some of the most landslide-prone areas of India, suggesting that we may well see substantial landslide challenges in these areas.

The caveat of course is that monsoon-triggered landslides are sensitive to rainfall intensity as well as rainfall magnitude. A below average monsoon can bring intense rainfall events that trigged catastrophic landslides. Unfortunately, the forecasts cannot resolve this issue.

As an aside, the next few days in the European Alps will be interesting. We are about to see a few days of unusually high temperatures, which are likely to drive a wave of snowmelt and permafrost thawing. Given the time of year, this could well trigger extensive rockfall activity.

Unfortunately, by the time I get to Switzerland in nine days the weather is forecast to have reverted to cool drizzle!

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The 19 July 2025 multiple landslide event in Sancheong, South Korea

Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025.

On 19 July 2025, intense, long duration rainfall triggered over 550 landslides in Sancheong, South Korea, killing at least 10 people.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

On 19 July 2025, extremely heavy rainfall triggered multiple landslides in Sancheong, South Korea. This event has been described by a new paper (Nguyen et al. 2026) just published in the journal Landslides. The paper is behind a paywall, but this link should give you access at the time of writing.

The core of the affected area is at [35.4333, 127.9111] (as usual, Landslides provides the location in degrees minutes and seconds when digital degrees is so much more useful – a pet frustration of mine!). This is a Planet Labs image of a part of the area, captured before the event. The marker is at the coordinate noted above:-

Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025.
Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission. Image dated 10 July 2025.

And this is the same area after 19 July 2025:-

Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025.
Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission. Image dated 23 July 2025.

And here is a slider to allow a comparison:-

Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025.Planet Labs image of a part of the area affected by landslides during heavy rainfall in Sancheong County, South Korea on 19 July 2025.
Images by Planet Labs.

Nguyen et al. (2026) have mapped 568 individual landslides triggered by this rainfall event, triggered by rainfall in the range of 498 – 619 mm over a c. 55 hour period. These landslides killed at least 10 people and caused damage to homes and infrastructure. It is estimated that the restoration costs are in the order of US$800 million.

In common with many other events of this type, the landslides are mainly shallow, translational failures in soil or regolith on steeper slopes. As I have frequently noted, such terrain is very susceptible to unusually intense rainfall events, which often trigger a cluster of landslides in close proximity. These often merge to form channelised debris flows. Nguyen et al. (2026) note however that their modelling indicates that it was a combination of the intensity of the rainfall and its duration that led to these failures.

As rainfall intensities increase due to climate change, we are seeing increasing numbers of these landslide clusters. I greatly welcome studies such as Nguyen et al. (2026) , which allow us to build understanding in each case.

Reference and acknowledgement

Nguyen, H.H.D., Song, C.H. & Kim, Y.T. 2026. Physically based data-driven analysis for large-scale investigation of the July 2025 rainfall-induced landslide in Sancheong, South KoreaLandslides. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-026-02778-x

Planet Team 20246. Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. https://www.planet.com/

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Fatal landslides in April 2026

The landslide at Lamarain in Papua New Guinea

In April 2026 I recorded 36 fatal landslides causing 90 fatalities, the lowest monthly total for 2026 to date.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

This is my regular update for the number of fatal global landslides, focusing on March 2026. As usual, this data has been collected in line with the methodology described in Froude and Petley (2018) and in Petley (2012). References are listed below – please cite these articles if you use this analysis. Data presented in these updates should be treated as being provisional at this stage as I will reanalyse them prior to formal publication, and other events will emerge.

The headline figures are as follows:

March 2026: 36 fatal landslides causing 90 fatalities;

This is an interesting result, unusually showing that fatal landslides in April were substantially lower than for any of the preceding months in 2026. This is the updated annual chart by month:-

The number of global fatal landslides in 2026 by month to the end of April.
The number of global fatal landslides in 2026 by month to the end of April.

Loyal readers will know that I like to present the running total using pentads (five day blocks). This is the cumulative total pentad graph to the end of Pentad 24 (which captures all of the events to the end of April):-

The cumulative total number of global fatal landslides in 2026 by pentad to the end of April.
The cumulative total number of global fatal landslides in 2026 by pentad to the end of April.

Thus, whilst April 2026 was unexceptional compared with the previous months of this year, the number of fatal landslides was still above the long term mean. Overall, 2026 continues to run extremely hot, exceeding even the record-breaking year of 2024.

We now start to enter the crucial period of much higher global fatal landslide occurrence. Whilst in the long term dataset this acceleration typically occurs in June (or even July), in recent years it has happened in May, as the 2024 line shows. I will watch with great interest to see what happens this month.

As I always stress, the occurrence of fatal landslides prior to the South and East Asia rainy seasons is not a predictor of what will happen in that period. Interestingly, the WMO is forecasting a below average summer monsoon in South Asia.

References

Froude, M. and Petley, D.N. 2018.  Global fatal landslide occurrence from 2004 to 2016.  Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 18, 2161-2181.

Petley, D.N. 2012. Global patterns of loss of life from landslidesGeology 40 (10), 927-930.

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The 10 August 2025 landslide and tsunami at Tracy Arm fjord in Alaska

A mountainside stripped of trees has some dead vegetation still visible.

A wonderful new paper on the huge Tracy Arm landslide and tsunami will have profound but challenging implications for the management of risk in an age of increased tourism and rapid climate change.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

The journal Science has published an excellent new paper (Shugar et al. 2026) that examines the extraordinary 10 August 2025 landslide and tsunami at Tracy Arm fjord in Alaska. The paper is open access, so you can read it for yourself (it is very accessible), and there has been a plethora of media coverage (quite rightly).

I wrote about this event at the time and in the aftermath, but Shugar et al. (2026) is the authorative source. There is little for me to add to the science, but AGU Eos has a really excellent write up and explainer that I thoroughly recommend.

That large landslides occur in fjords is not a surprise, and that they can generate enormous displacement waves is also not news. We know that landslide occurrence in these environments in general is increasing, and specifically so in Alaska. However, this paper is the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of such an event, and it has shown the remarkable threat that these events can generate. The tsunami created by this landslide had a 481 metre run-up; it is remarkable that there were no fatalities. If a large cruise ship had been in the area, with passengers being ferried ashore on small boats and exploring the shoreline, the consequences would have been catastrophic. It is unsurprising then that cruise companies are now amending their itineraries.

The USGS released the image below of the aftermath of the landslide and tsunami – scale is hard to understand in such images, but the crown of the landslide is over 1,000 metres above the level of the fjord, and the landslide had a subaerial volume of over 63 million cubic metres.

A photo shows a mountainside with a large wedge of lighter-colored rock, above a churning channel of water. The foot of a glacier can be seen at the lower edge of the image.
This aerial photo shows the north side of Alaska’s Tracy Arm Fjord in the aftermath of the 2025 landslide and tsunami. The lighter-colored rock is the exposed surface, where the mountainside collapsed and fell into the water. The foot of South Sawyer Glacier is visible at lower right; in decades past, the ice extended much farther and was thick enough to hold the rock slopes in place. Credit: Cyrus Read/U.S. Geological Survey

Shugar et al. (2026) has a brief section that examines the implications of this event, and of the understanding that it provides of the hazards posed by very large landslides in fjord settings. These are locations with extensive human activity – local communities, trade, fishing and tourism. There is some evidence that these landsldies are more likely to occur in the spring and summer months, when human occupation is higher. Our resilience to a tsunami wave that starts off being hundreds of metres high is low.

A case in point lies in Milford Sound in New Zealand, where (for example) an earthquake on the Alpine Fault has the potential to trigger a large landslide that could result in a major tsunami. Milford Sound is an extremely popular tourism location. Should such an event occur, and mass fatalities result, there is no doubt that the public inquiry would find that the societal risk was known and that it was probably unacceptable. However, to ban tourism, including cruise ships, in this area would carry heavy risks in its own right – it would profoundly impact the vital tourist economy of the area, on which many livelihoods depend. This is a substantial risk in its own right, and of course politics plays a major part too. Balancing these risks is a major challenge for any society.

Some hope is offered by the fact that this landslide showed substantial precursory seismic activity, which might represent a route to providing a warning for at least some of these rock slope failures. But research in this area is immature at the moment, and of course there will be no warning for a landslide triggered by a major earthquake.

So, the landslide at Tracy Arm fjord presents us with a host of major challenges, but it also represents a big step forward in our understanding of these events. Well done to Dan and his colleagues for another brilliant paper. I shall watch the debate with great interest.

Reference

Shugar et al. 2026. A 481-meter-high landslide-tsunami in a cruise ship–frequented Alaska fjord. Science, eaec3187. DOI:10.1126/science.aec3187

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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Wealth and land-cover change govern landslide fatalities on world’s mountains

The relationship between the land use - land cover change rate and the density of fatal landslides for mountain areas around the world.

A new paper Fidan et al. (2026) demonstrates that wealth and the rate of land-cover change play a key role in determining the occurrence of fatal landslides in mountain areas. These factors are statistically more significant that precipitation and topography.

Image of a landslide partially covered with a transparent sand-colored overlay and the words “The Landslide Blog,” centered, in white

A fascinating new paper (Fidan et al. 2026 – this paper is both open access and published under a Creative Commons licence – hurrah!) has just been published in the journal Science Advances that explores rates of land-cover (in the paper, the authors use the term land-use – land-cover) change as a factor in determining fatal landslides in mountains globally. I must admit to some degree of personal interest in this paper, although I am neither an autor nor a reviewer, as it brilliantly uses the dataset that Melanie Froude and I collated on global landslide fatalities (see Froude and Petley 2018). I’m delighted to see our data being used in this way (and please do contact me if you want a copy of the spreadsheet).

Fidan et al. (2026) explores a range of factors that might influence the occurrence of fatal landslides from the perspective of either increased vulnerability (poorer people may live in more vulnerable locations for example) or increased landslide likelihood (land-cover change might increase the likelihood of a landslide being triggered, for example).

The fascinating result lies in land-cover change. The authors have looked at  approximately 60 years of land-cover changes in mountainous areas across 46 countries. Unsurprisingly, there is substantial change, especially in low- and lower-middle–income countries, often involving the loss of forest (which as a first order estimation, may buffer against slope failures), although the pattern is far more complex of course. Fidan et al. (2026) find that a key metric is the rate of change of land-cover, and that this is linked to the rate of population growth (perhaps unsurprisingly). Countries with high rates of population growth also show high rates of change of land-cover.

In many ways, the most interesting figure in this study is in the Supplementary Information. It is a complex diagram, but it’s worth more detailed analysis:-

The relationship between the land use - land cover change rate and the density of fatal landslides for mountain areas around the world.
The relationship between the land-cover change rate and the density of fatal landslides for mountain areas around the world. Figure from Fidan et al. (2026), published under a Creative Commons Licence.

The main map (A) shows mountain areas with high rates of land-cover change (orange), high density of fatal landslides (blue) or both (black). The left hand graph (B) shows the relationship between the landslide density and the rate of change of land-cover – here, higher rates of land-cover change are associated with a higher density of fatal landslides. The right hand graph is the same data as in (B), but with each point coloured according to the income level of the country. High income countries have a lower fatal landslide density. Thus, as the authors conclude, wealth and land-cover change appear to control fatal landslide density.

There is a really surprising element to this study, which I think requires more consideration. I think I should allow the authors themselves to express this finding, from the abstract:-

“Our statistical analyses show that land-use – land-cover changes have a substantially greater influence on the density of fatal landslides and landslide fatalities than physical factors such as topography and precipitation, especially in lower-income countries.”

As landslide researchers, we almost always default to topography and precipitation as being key in landslide occurrence. There are sound reasons for doing so. But statistically, the rate of land-cover change plays a more important role in mountain areas, especially in poorer countries.

This has (or should have) major implications for the way that we consider and manage landslide risk in such areas.

References

Fidan, S. et al. 2026. Wealth and land-cover change govern landslide fatalities on world’s mountains. Science Advances 12, eaec2739. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec2739.

Froude M.J. and Petley D.N. 2018. Global fatal landslide occurrence from 2004 to 2016Natural Hazards and Earth System Science 18, 2161-2181. DOI: 10.5194/nhess-18-2161-2018.

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.
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