The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.
Various images have now emerged of the 5 km long, 14 April 2024 Piz Scerscen rock avalanche in Switzerland. With thanks to Amt für Naturgefahren, Kanton Graubünden, Ch, these three images provide a dramatic and remarkable impression of the scale and dynamics of the landslide:-
These are remarkable images. Note, in the first and second images, the super-elevation as the landslide has turned the corner (i.e. the way that the landslide has ridden up the valley wall). The flow structures at the toe are beautiful. And of course, note the dust on the snow adjacent to the landslide mass.
Meanwhile, there have been some very interesting posts on Twitter about this landslide. Matthias Huss posted this before and after comparison of the mountains:-
Melaine Le Roy posted an initial analysis of the failure:-
Melaine Le Roy has also documented earlier events in this area:-
Silvan Leinss has kindly given me permission to post his images here – this is an amazing perspective on the landslide:-
Finally, the timing of the rock avalanche was immensely fortunate. As Mylène Jacquemart pointed out to me, the landslide occurred on a sunny Sunday morning, and reached popular hiking trails and cross-country tracks. Failure a few hours later could have led to a disaster. The landslide passed close to the Tschierva hut, which is circled on the image below, also collected by Silvan Leinss:-
