A remarkable landslide at Karl Marx village, in Jalpak-Tash, Kyrgyzstan
On the night of 22 March 2023 a landslide was triggered at Karl-Marx village in Jalpak-Tash rural municipality, Uzgen in Kyrgyzstan. The landslide is reported to be 1 million cubic metres. AKI Press has a posted a drone video of this event onto Youtube – it is breathtaking:-
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This is a still from the video:-
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The image below shows the upper portion of the landslide, including the source area:-
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Whilst the image below shows the landslide track:-
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The head scarp area of the Jalpak-Tash landslide shows a reasonably deep seated landslide source, with possibly a minor rotational component to the failure. The main part of the landslide track appears to me to be an earthflow. The video seems to indicate that the landslide was still creeping at the time of the failure.
The location of this landslide is unclear to me, but research suggests that it might be close to Kurbu-Tash, which is at [40.611, 73.293]. This area suffered a large landslide that I highlighted in 2017, which was not dissimilar to the 22 March 2023 event. This remains to be confirmed.
An AKI Press article reports that an emergency situation has been declared for the village, with the residents of 18 houses having been evacuated, but that the risk is considered to be low. The rate of movement has been recorded at about 3 metres per hour.
The trigger for this landslide is not given, but this will be snowmelt season in this part of Kyrgyzstan. The 2017 landslide also occurred in the Spring.