Abstract
On July 5, 2021, a catastrophic rock avalanche hit an area in the upper Naltar valley, located in northwestern Gilgit, Pakistan. The 14 Mm3 rock mass flowed down the hillslope and traveled a distance of approximately 5 km. The avalanche killed four people and damaged more than 150 livestock. Based on a field investigation, the event is classified as a dual-phase avalanche comprising glacial ice and rock mass mixtures. In this study, the runout behavior and characteristics of the upper Naltar rock avalanche are analyzed using DAN3D. The simulation results indicate that the propagation process lasted for 140 s, with an average maximum velocity of 32 m/s. The frictional-Voellmy model for the materials in the source and erosion areas produced the best results for DAN3D. Parameter calibration, model performance, and verification were performed numerically and based on field observations. It is hoped that the selected model and parameters will help the relevant agencies understand the propagation process of similar kinds of rock avalanches in the area surrounding the current avalanche, thus improving the hazard zonation in this region.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Muhammad Sajjad of National Logistic Cell PMU, Gilgit Baltistan, Site Engineer at Naltar Expressway, for assisting with field investigations.
Funding
This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFC1504804) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41977215).
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Hasnain Gardezi did the simulation work, field investigation work, and wrote the paper; Aiguo Xing designed the research, and helped the revision work; Muhammad Bilal did the field investigation and helped modified the manuscript; Yu Zhuang helped the numerical work and modified the manuscript; Shoaib Muhammad and Shahmir Janjua helped the investigation work.
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Gardezi, H., Xing, A., Bilal, M. et al. Preliminary investigation and dynamic analysis of a multiphase ice-rock avalanche on July 5, 2021, in the upper Naltar valley, Gilgit, Pakistan. Landslides 19, 451–463 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-021-01840-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-021-01840-0