The 12 July 2024 landslide at Simaltal in Nepal

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

There are reports in Nepal of a major landslide disaster in the Simaltal area of Chitwan district. The reports indicate that at 3:30 am a landslide struck two buses travelling along the Narayanghat to Mugling road. Both vehicles were swept into the Trisuli River, which is in flood. It is believed that there were 65 people on the two vehicles.

So for, only three people have been rescued; the prospects for the remaining passengers seem grim.

Simaltal is not easy to locate, but reports suggest that it is located in Ward 29 of Bharatpur Metropolitan City. This places the accident on the section of road shown on the Google Earth image below. Have included a marker at [27.7797, 84.4402] to allow easy location of this section, but this is not the correct location of the landslide itself.

Of course at this stage there is considerable uncertainty about the numbers of people involved, but this looks to be a very significant event.

Nepal has been suffering from the effects of intense monsoonal rainfall for the last few days. For example, there are reports of multiple landslides in Kaski District, including seven fatalities in Tallakot in Pokhara Metropolitan City Ward 19, three fatalities in a landslide in Chainpur in Pokhara Ward 19 and one fatality in Madi Rural Municipality Ward 11.

I have recorded 13 other fatal landslides in Nepal since the start of July. Whilst this is the peak of the landslide season in the Himalayas, this is a high rate of events.

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