Images of the 14 April 2024 Piz Scerscen rock avalanche – GWC Mag

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:-

The collapse of our mountains continues!
Yesterday morning a massive landslide occurred at Piz Scerscen, Eastern Switzerland. >1 million m3 of rock crashed onto the glacier and pushed 5km downvalley, leaving a huge scar in the landscape.
Pics: webcam Corvatsch pic.twitter.com/Sog3AcMlNb

— Matthias Huss (@matthias_huss) April 15, 2024

Melaine Le Roy posted an initial analysis of the failure:-

BEFORE/AFTER Piz #Scerscen rock avalanche from #Corvatsch resort 🪨❄️😲
Note dust layer covering all the area outside main rock deposit!
Volume 1M m3
Scar 3730-3400 m asl
Niche area ~1.25 km² of which collapsed glacier area ~0.84 km²
Runout ~5.5 km
(Estimates R. Scotti/J. Beutel) pic.twitter.com/gpcOUx6nx1

— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) April 15, 2024

Melaine Le Roy has also documented earlier events in this area:-

14 April 2024 Piz #Scerscen rock avalanche had a preliminary event last October
April scar is located above and extends south of October one
Given steep cliff that’s formed, maybe more to come?
Pics:
– 28 Aug 2021 (Riccardo Scotti)
– October 2023 (Juerg Kaufmann)
– 14 April 2024 pic.twitter.com/ql1vh0YO7U

— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) April 15, 2024

VAW glaciology posted a beautiful image of the landslide, collected by Silvan Leinss, of the landslide from an adjacent peak:-

⚠️On the morning of April 14, Tschierva Glacier was impacted by a large rock #avalanche which originated from Piz Scerscen 🏔️at around 3300m and ran about 5km into the Roseg valley! Thankfully, no reports of missing persons 🤞Photo credit: Silvan Leinss https://t.co/d0K8T92KTH pic.twitter.com/GSU7I7bIuc

— VAW Glaciology (@VAW_glaciology) April 15, 2024

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:-

Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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