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Mudslides in Venezuela, Taiwan and Zhouqu, Gannan

2018-09-21  |   Editor : houguangbing  

A mudslide in northern Venezuela

From December 15 to 16, 1999, eight states along the Caribbean coast in the northern Venezuela, AWeiLaShan area suffered from heavy rain, causing debris flow to outbreak in large area of mountain. In addition, large area of debris flow outbreak in dozens of valleys at the same time and therefore, a large number of houses were destroyed, many roads were damaged and farmland were flooded. It is estimated that 337, 000 people have been affected, 140, 000 people have been left homeless, more than 30,000 people died and $10 billion of the economic loss. The disaster is the most severe mudslide in the 20th century.

Mudslides in east and central Taiwan

On the evening of July 29, 2001, medium-strength typhoon "cheese" disembarked from eastern Taiwan, bringing long-continued rainstorm, which made Hualian, Nantou and east, central county of Taiwan suffer from serious flood mudslides. At that time, the earth and rock were everywhere, the dam collapsed and homes and farmland were destroyed. A total of 91 people in Taiwan were killed, 133 were missing and 189 injured, causing agricultural losses of more than 6 billion TWD. Hualien County, Guangfu, Daxing village, a hard-hit area, was destroyed. The whole village has been buried under soil and rocks. There were no decent houses and 10 people in Yang family lost their lives in the disaster.

Mudslides in Zhouqu, Gannan

On the night of August 7, 2010, there was a huge mudslide in Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Gansu, killing 1434 people with 331 people missing. Area of 5 kilometers long, 500 meters wide in Zhouqu was razed to the ground. Zhouqu County is located in the southeast of Gansu province. It is the severely afflicted area in the "5.12" big earthquake in China. Three kinds of major geological disasters happen frequently in the area, including landslides, mudslides and earthquakes. The Sanyan valley, Luojiayu ditch, Xiaoshui ditch and Zhaizi ditch, where the disaster happened are located in the northern part of the county.

On August 7, at 11 PM, torrential rains occurred in northern mountainous areas in Zhouqu County, with rainfall of 97 mm and lasting more than 40 minutes. The rain caused big geological disasters in Sanyan valley, Luojia valley and other four canal systems, such as debris flow with length of 5 km, average width of 300 meters, average thickness of 5 meters and total volume of 7.5 million steres. The flow-through areas were razed to the ground.

The massive mudslides in Zhouqu County caused more than 1,850 commercial households to bury or submerge, with a total area of more than 47,000 square meters and an economic loss of 21.2 million yuan. Among them, 650 housese were destroyed and buried by mudslides, covering an area of 12,000 square meters, with an economic loss of 32 million yuan. Besides, 1,200 shops were flooded, with an area of 35,000 square meters and an economic loss of 180 million yuan.

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  • 1 Geologic disasters in China