A landslide emergency at Longiarù in northern Italy

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

In the Dolomite region of northern Italy, an interesting landslide emergency is under way. The location is Longiarù, a village located in San Martino in Badia. So far, 56 buildings, mostly houses, have had to be evacuated, and emergency works are underway to protect the village from a slow moving mudflow that is heading towards the village.

There is a drone video of the landslide on Youtube:-

Meanwhile, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano has released this image of the works underway to dredge the channel to allow the landslide to pass through:-

The landslide, which is slow moving, is following the path of a small gulley called the Rio di Seres. It was triggered by a period of heavy rainfall.

The Planet Labs image below shows this site in October 2023, before the winter snowfall and rains. The Rio di Seres is marked:-

And here is an excellent image captured yesterday:-

And for completeness, here is a slider that allows the two images to be compared:-

As the images show, the landslide has originated as a failure in a steep, forested area. The length of the landslide at the time of capture of the image yesterday was about 1.3 km.

Italy is the most landslide-prone country in Europe, and the Dolomite region has a long history of failures. Fortunately, the Italian authorities are very adept at handling such crises.

Reference

Planet Team (2024). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. https://www.planet.com/

Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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