Brief Communication: Landslides triggered by the <i>M</i><sub>s</sub> = 7.0 Lushan earthquake, China

Abstract

Abstract. Earthquake-triggered landslides have drawn much attention around the world because of the severe hazards they pose. The 20 April 2013 M s = 7.0 Lushan Earthquake, which occurred in the Longmen Shan region in Sichuan province, China, triggered more than 1000 landslides throughout an area of about 2200 km 2 , and completely blocked many roads and exacerbated overall transportation problems in the mountainous terrain. Preliminary landslide inventory is complied immediately following the earthquake, mainly based on the high-resolution remote sensing images. At the same time, the distribution of these landslides is statistically investigated to determine how the occurrence of landslides correlates with distance from the earthquake epicenter, slope steepness, seismic intensity and rock type. Statistic analysis is conducted using landslide point density (LPD), which is defined as the number of landslides per square kilometer. It is found that LPD has a strong positive correlation with slope gradients and a negative-exponential decline with the distance from the epicenter. The higher LPD values occur in younger strata systems like Quaternary and Tertiary sediments in the study area. Spatially, the triggered landslides are controlled by the causative faults and mainly concentrated around the epicenter. All the landslides are located within the area with seismic intensity ≥ VII and in line with seismic intensity. Generally, LPD value decreases with increasing distance from the epicenter, and sometimes landslides are densely distributed along the roads in the mountainous region. Also, this study reveals that the empirical relationship between distance and seismic magnitude is more suitable for estimating the landslide concentration area during the Lushan earthquake compared to other methods.

Prediction of highway blockage caused by earthquake-induced landslides for improving earthquake emergency response

“…The area of extraction was limited to the area with seismic intensity VII and above 6 because of the limited coverage of the remote sensing images acquired and the consideration of the correlations between the distribution of earthquake-induced landslides and the seismic intensities revealed by the past several earthquakes that have occurred in Wenchuan and Lushan (Chen et al 2014;Dai et al 2011;Wang 2014;Xu et al 2013b). 3.…”

“…For example, the previously mentioned Ms 7.0 Lushan earthquake, which occurred in the Longmen Mountain region in Sichuan, China, induced more than 1000 landslides that completely blocked many highways (Chen et al 2014). Highway blockage due to landslides is a recurring problem for EER, but we have not found any previous research related to the problem of predicting highway blockage caused by earthquake-induced landslides.…”

Analysis of the disaster characteristics and emergency response of the Jiuzhaigou earthquake

“…3.6 Comparison of the emergency response to four large earthquakes Table 2 compares of the disaster situation (Zheng et al, 2010(Zheng et al, , 2011Chen et al, 2014;Zheng and Zheng, 2015) and emergency response data (Yang and Chen, 2008;Cheng et al, 2010;Deng, 2010;Yang, 2010;Wang and Chen, 2012;Editorial Office, 2013;Lu and Xu, 2014;Yang et al, 2014) for four major earthquakes. The data in Table 2 show that each emergency response improved relative to the previous ones.…”

SAR interferometry and optical remote sensing for analysis of co-seismic deformation, source characteristics and mass wasting pattern of Lushan (China, April 2013) earthquake

“…The landslides also show differential concentration in various lithological units. Analysis of its distribution with respect to the lithological units (derived using Kirby and Ouimet, 2011; http://cegrp.cga.harvard.edu/data; Chen et al, 2014) shows that the limestone/sandstone area has the highest landslide density percentage, followed by limestone/marble/phyllite and slate/limestone areas (Fig. 11).…”