Abstract
The recent Laxmanpuri landslide of Mussoorie area is one of the major landslide events in the Uttarakhand Himalaya. The landslide occurred in July 2016, in proximity to Civil Hospital Quarters and Mussoorie Veterinary Hospital buildings on the Mussoorie-Chamba road. The landslide had caused serious environmental and socio-economic problems as part of the road segment along with nearby buildings being severely damaged. Though it was categorized solely as a rain-induced landslide, the Laxmanpuri area in the vicinity of the landslide location has undergone significant anthropogenic exploitation in terms of building and road construction in recent times. The proximity of landslide to civil structures and recent history of anthropogenic activities make a strong reason for detailed stability evaluation. Therefore, an engineering geological investigation and comparison based on pre- and post-event stability analyses has been carried out to derive its failure mechanism, causes and also to assess the present stability condition. This study uses finite element modelling with shear strength reduction technique for stability analysis. In the pre-event stability analysis, the slope was found to be unstable (with factor of safety < 1), and the shear strain and displacement are confined to the shallow overburden. While in the post-event stability analysis, the landslide-affected slope was found to be stable with a factor of safety of > 2. The rise in factor of safety in the post-event stability analysis may be attributed to the fact that the unstable shallow overburden mass got translationally moved down, exposing the competent in-situ quartzite rock on the slope. The investigation revealed this to be a translational failure involving shallow overburden material triggered by rainfall. The anthropogenic activities involving deep excavation for road construction and improper discharge of wastewater from the surrounding buildings over the landslide-affected slope had derailed the equilibrium condition of the slope, causing failure during rains.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Vipin Kumar, Department of Geology, University of Liège, Belgium, who has supported the numerical modelling part of this paper. Further, the authors would like to express their courtesy to the editor-in-chief and to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments, which significantly improved the quality of the paper.
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Peethambaran, B., Kanungo, D.P. & Anbalagan, R. Insights to pre- and post-event stability analysis of rainfall-cum-anthropogenically induced recent Laxmanpuri landslide, Uttarakhand, India. Environ Earth Sci 81, 21 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-10143-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-10143-5