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Detailed Inventory of Landslides Triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and Its Comparison with Other Earthquake Events in the World

  • XU Chong
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  • Key Laboratory of Active Tectonics and Volcano, Institute of Geology, Chinese Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China

Received date: 2012-07-13

  Revised date: 2012-07-31

  Online published: 2012-09-08

Abstract

It is indicated that on May 12, 2008, 197, 481 landslides triggered by Wenchuan earthquake (Mw 7.9) in China, total affected area is about 1, 160km2, distributing in an area of approximate110,000km2 by the latest studies. The inventory is the most detailed and comprehensive landslide inventory in the recent publications of landslide inventory related to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, it is also the largest landslide inventory for a single earthquake event at the beginning of records. Among of these landslides, 196,007 landslides (account for 99.25%), with a total area of 1,150.622km2 (account for 99.19%), concentrate in an approximate ellipse area with a total area of 44,031km2. The Yinxiu-Beichuan co-seismic surface rupture is the long axis of the approximate ellipse area. The power rules between cumulative landslide number and landslide area having size between 10,000m2 and 1,000,000m2 related to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake could be represented as a power law relationship, which is lg N(A)=-2.0745A+13 with R2=0.9931. This result indicates a good power law relationship between landslide area and landslide number. The area affected by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake slightly exceeds the upper bounds determined by single earthquake events all over the world. The inventory of landslides triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake provides an important basic data for the future research.

Cite this article

XU Chong . Detailed Inventory of Landslides Triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and Its Comparison with Other Earthquake Events in the World[J]. Science & Technology Review, 2012 , 30(25) : 18 -26 . DOI: 10.3981/j.issn.1000-7857.2012.25.008

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