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Manutuke: a near miss landslide from Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand
News of the landslides triggered by Cyclone Garbrielle in New Zealand continues to emerge, assisted by cloud-free conditions that are permitting satellite imagery to be collected. The NZ Herald has an interesting story about a large landslide in Manutuke, situated in the Gisborne District of North Island. The landslide is thought to be the largest failure triggered in the region – and it is an impressive event. The article includes this image:-
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As the image shows, the landslide missed the house by a small margin. The NZ Herald article provides some detail:
Clive, 69, and Helen, 58, Foster have been living back at their property on Taurau Valley Rd for a few days since the massive rocky slip filled in a 20 metre deep valley beside their property just after 6pm on Tuesday.
“It’s pretty amazing, aye? It’s huge. Our boundary is just down here… Basically 99 per cent of it missed us, you know what I mean,” Clive Foster said of the downhill effects of Cyclone Gabrielle.
“We just said ****, we’re both alive, no one got injured, the house is all functioning like it was last week, it’s all fine. Really speaking, it’s great. What the hell? We’re alive. It’s just a mess.”
The rate of movement was slow, according to the article, in keeping with the earthflow typology of the landslide. The house has been red stickered – i.e. it cannot now be occupied, presumably because of uncertainty about the likelihood of a further failure.
The landslide at Manutuke can be seen on Planet imagery:-
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The crown of the landslide is in the south, so the house is in the north-east extent of the landslide. The landslide is almost exactly 1 km long. The location of the landslide is [38.730, 177.878].
This is just one of many thousands of landslides triggered by the cyclone. On Twitter, this helicopter image has been posted showing landslides in the Wairoa region:-
My helicopter mate just rang me from Wairoa. Reckons it’s really bad down there. He has seen ‘dozens’ of bodies yet to be recovered. Devastation of hill country enormous. Is going to call back tonight but was quite shaken. Terribly sad. pic.twitter.com/jCXbC1ccHJ
— Infideliter 🇳🇿🛠⚖️⚒⚙️🇳🇿 (@Infideliter2022) February 20, 2023
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Whilst the image is unverified (and the claim of dozens of bodies is also not being reported elsewhere), it appears to show hundreds of shallow landslides. Imagery from Planet in the Wairoa area suggests that this is indeed the case:-
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The level of landslide events is similar to that caused by the infamous Cyclone Bola in 1988, which also triggered large numbers of shallow failures.
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Reference and acknowledgement
Planet Team (2023). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. https://www.planet.com/
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