Landslides and mudflows that killed 200 or more people since 1950

Map of 10 locations · Worldwide

Dated records of slope failures since 1950 in which 200 or more people died: debris avalanches off glaciated peaks, volcanic lahars, rain-triggered debris flows and the tsunami raised by a collapsing volcanic flank. Each entry fixes where and when the mass moved, and what the contemporary reporting and the scientific record set down about it. The events are historical, and the figures are given as the sources state them, including where they disagree. The set follows Wikipedia's list of landslides, read and transcribed by hand at a threshold of 200 deaths, so it is a curator's reading of that record rather than a database query.

Places in this collection

  • 2024 Wayanad landslides — At 2 a.m. on Tuesday 30 July 2024 a landslide hit Mundakkai, a hamlet near Meppadi in the Wayanad district of Kerala, high on the Western G…
  • 2018 Anak Krakatau flank collapse and Sunda Strait tsunami — On 22 December 2018 the flank of the Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia failed, and the collapse generated a tsunami that killed more than…
  • 2015 El Cambray Dos landslide — At 21:30 on 1 October 2015, heavy rains brought a hillside loose in the El Cambray II neighbourhood of Santa Catarina Pinula municipality,…
  • 2014 Badakhshan mudslides — A mudslide on 2 May 2014 overwhelmed and covered much of a village in the Argo District of Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan,…
  • 2013 North India floods and landslides — In the early hours of 16 June 2013 a flash flood came down from the overflowing banks of Chorabari lake in Uttarakhand, after Kedarnath rec…
  • 2010 Gansu mudslide — Flooding over the weekend of 7 and 8 August 2010 set off massive slides in the Zhouqu district of Gansu, in remote northwestern China, wher…
  • 2006 Southern Leyte mudslide — Two major landslides on 17 February 2006 buried the village of Guinsaugon, near the town of St. Bernard in Southern Leyte Province in the P…
  • 1999 Vargas tragedy — Heavy rainfall from the storm of 14 to 16 December 1999 triggered thousands of landslides on the steep slopes of the Sierra de Avila north…
  • 1970 Huascarán debris avalanche at Yungay — An earthquake struck Peru's Ancash region at exactly 3:23 p.m. on 31 May 1970, breaking a large mass of glacier and rock loose from the sum…
  • 1962 Huascarán debris avalanche at Ranrahirca — On the evening of 10 January 1962 the periphery of a glacier on the slopes of Mount Huascarán, which rises some 22,000 feet in the Andes, c…

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