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A catastrophic rockslide-debris flow in Wulong, Chongqing, China in 2009: background, characterization, and causes Abstract On June 5, 2009, a catastrophic rockslide-debris flow occurred at the crest of the Jiweishan Mountain in Wulong, Chongqing, China. Approximately five million cubic meters of limestone blocks slid along a weak interlayer of bituminous and carbonaceous shale. The source mass descended from the upper part of the slope rapidly, crossing a 200-m wide and 50-m deep creek in front of it. Blocked by the opposite steep creek wall, the sliding mass changed its direction and traveled a further 2.2 km along the creek in debris-flow mode, finally forming a large accumulation zone with an average depth of 30 m. This is one of the most catastrophic rockslide events in recent years in China. It buried 12 houses and the entrance of an iron mining tunnel where some 27 miners were working inside. Ten people died, 64 missing, and eight wounded. Immediately after this disaster happened, the government organized an expert team to assist the rescue work. As one of the geological experts, the author did a lot of field investigations and collected first-hand information. Multi-methods including the remote sensing, 3D laser scanning, geophysical exploration, and numerical modeling were used for analyzing the characteristics and the triggering mechanism of the Wulong rockslide. The preliminary investigation results reveal that this rockslide with poor geological conditions was mainly induced by the gravitation and the karst effect and also affected by the previous mining activities. The research in this paper is meaningful and useful for further research on such kind of rockslides that are geologically similar to the Wulong rockslide.

Abstract. A catastrophic flowslide occurred at the Hongao dumpsite on 20 December 2015 in the Guangming New District of Shenzhen, China. The flowslide caused 77 causalities and damaged 33 buildings. In the absence of extreme weather conditions and seismic activity, the causes of the failure were analyzed on the basis of multi-temporal remote-sensing images, site investigation, in situ tests, laboratory tests, and numerical analyses. Site investigations showed that the volume of the displaced material was 2.32 × 10 6 m 3 and the volume of the pre-failure waste filling was 6.27 × 10 6 m 3 . The flowslide was characterized by high travel velocity and long runout distance. The displaced material was primarily a mixture of silty soil and construction and demolition waste with water content of 17.3-42.4 %. The primary causes of the failure were concluded to be the following: (1) groundwater flow had stagnated in the dumpsite due to drainage system failure and the underlying impermeable granite stratum; (2) the accumulation rate and total volume of the waste filling was in exceedance of the design capacity. The flowslide may be ascribed to the development of excess pore-water pressure as evidence of liquefaction was observed at several locations, and it is postulated that such phenomena were related to the surcharge loads imposed by the unregulated disposal activities.