People interested in geotechnical engineering are watching closely the colliery landslide at Hatfield Stainforth, in Northern England that is still in progress. Since February 13nth reports and photos on the landslide’s progress are coming in.

Thanks to Prof. Dave Petley’s (Durham University UK) landslide blog, the info and the photographs are really spectacular. According to his first estimation the size and the geometry of the toe bulge suggest a bearing capacity failure. The very wet weather of last few months, triggered the landslide with a rotational geometry.

Due to the size of landslide mass, stabilization will be highly difficult. The railway line is expected to be closed for some time.

In these cases where the amount of soil mass is prohibiting, it might be better to wait for the landslide system to find progressively its own balance, before intervening with further stabilization measures.

Source:  http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog