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Mechanisms of rockslide-debris avalanches and the associated air blast—insights from the Su Village rockslide-debris avalanche in Zhejiang, China

Mechanisms of rockslide-debris avalanches and air blast

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Abstract

Typhoon-induced rockslide-debris avalanches are among the most dramatic geohazard in coastal mountainous regions, which commonly result in serious casualties and economic loss. In September 2016, typhoon “Catfish” attacked the Su Village in Southeastern China and triggered a devastating rockslide-debris avalanche. The detached mass traveled 1000 m, generated a powerful air blast, and resulted in 27 deaths. In this study, we performed a thorough survey to investigate the avalanche characteristics and damages caused by air blasts. Meanwhile, numerical modeling and video analysis were conducted to investigate the avalanche dynamics and impacts of the air blast. Results indicated that the avalanche movement lasted for approximately 60 s with a maximum velocity of 42 m/s. The entrainment effect greatly enlarged the avalanche volume and extended the avalanche runout. Moreover, the generated air blast indicated a maximum pressure of 2.5 kPa and caused tree breakage beyond the avalanche runout.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 4227712) and Open Fund Projects of SKLGP (SKLGP2022K029).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Zhuang & Aiguo Xing

  2. State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, 610059, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Zhuang

  3. Nanjing Center, China Geological Survey, 210016, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China

    Yuehua Jiang & Qiang Sun

Authors
  1. Yu Zhuang
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  2. Aiguo Xing
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  3. Yuehua Jiang
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  4. Qiang Sun
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Contributions

YZ: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, and writing—original draft; AX: conceptualization, funding acquisition, and supervision; YJ and QS: investigation and resources.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aiguo Xing.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zhuang, Y., Xing, A., Jiang, Y. et al. Mechanisms of rockslide-debris avalanches and the associated air blast—insights from the Su Village rockslide-debris avalanche in Zhejiang, China. Landslides 21, 339–352 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-023-02161-0

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