Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.3 Alakananda River Valley with various thrust planes and lithology (Source www.esc.cam.
ac.uk )
Every year, especially during the summer monsoon period, landslide and related
natural disaster events claim many lives and destroy property, infrastructure, and
the environment of the Himalayas. The economic loss in landslide alone in this
region is estimated at $1 billion per year. It is estimated that the loss of life due to
landslides and related earth flow phenomena in the Himalayan Region constitutes
about 30 % of the world
s total landslide-related damage value. The earthquake
induced landslide in Himalayan terrain is quite common phenomena. A large
number of landslips took place after Uttarkashi Erathquake in 1991 (SOI, Publi-
cation 30). The Durham Landslide Fatality Database suggests that over 1,000
people were killed in landslide events in the Himalayas in 2007 alone, which
represents almost 35 % of the global total. It was estimated that over 20,000 people
were killed by landslides during the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake in Pakistan and
India. These people generally live in widely-spread settlements in the fragile
Himalayan terrains, and suffer more from the landslides than any other types of
natural disaster. A large number of human settlements on the Himalayas are situated
either on old landslide masses or in landslide-prone areas. As a result, a great
number of people are affected by large- and small- scale landslides throughout the
Himalayas, especially during rainy seasons. In 1988, a huge landslide at Darbang,
about 200 km west of Kathmandu in Nepal, killed 109 people and temporarily
blocked Myagdi River. About 62 years before this incident, the same landslide had
buried Darbang area killing about 500 people. Likewise, one of the worst landslide
tragedies took place at Malpa Uttarkhand, India on 11 and 17 August 1998 resulting
in death of 380 people when massive landslides washed away the entire village
( www.hils.org.np/publication.hils.org.np ) .
Due to the 18th September 2011 Sikkim earthquake (M: 6.8), several
'
and
a few reactivated landslides occurred right from the Himalayan foot-hill region
(e.g. Dudhia in Kurseong Sub-division, Darjeeling District, West Bengal) up to the
new
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