1 February 2015

New landslide video: a spectacular retaining wall failure

Posted by Dave Petley

Retaining wall failure

I don’t know the background to this spectacular retaining wall failure, which was posted on Youtube on 28th January:

 

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If you watch closely you can see the acceleration of the landslide in the period leading up to the collapse – right down to individual grains of soil.  An additional interesting aspect is the mobility of the landslide – the large object (the truck) was much more mobile than most of the retaining wall.

I wonder what the retaining wall was founded upon? (Other than the obvious “not enough” of course).