The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.
On 16 December 2023 an interesting failure occurred on an engineered slope at Taman Wawasan in Puchong, Malaysia. The location of the slope is [3.0378, 101.6215]. The failure removed the roadway in front of a set of residential properties, leading to the immediate evacuation of 29 people from nine houses.
The Malaysian Public Works Department, JKR, has released this drone image of the aftermath of the landslide:-
As the image above shows, the landslide has runout into a water treatment works. The Google Earth image below shows the site in 2004, when there was much less vegetation on the slope than is the case now:-
News reports indicate that the landslide occurred at about 7.30 pm following about two hours of intense rainfall. Whilst some cars were damaged, no-one was injured in the landslide. The Google Earth image appears to include a structure running across the slope – possibly a drainage channel – so this would be an interesting place to start in terms of understanding the landslide (although there is a range of possible causes, of course).
Flooding occurred elsewhere in Puchong as a result of the same rainstorm.
There is now emergency works underway at the site to install sheet piles to stabilise the slope in the short term.
