Sunday, September 7, 2008

Cairo landslide was expected


Dave's Landslide Blog site has a large number of photos and a description of the deadly landslide in Cairo in today: "The death toll in the rock slide at El Doweiqa in the Manshiet Nasser slum of east Cairo is slowly creeping upwards. At the time of writing it has exceeded 30 people, but unfortunately as the image [right] shows the likelihood is that it will be much higher once these huge blocks have been shifted (if ever)."

He also includes an article from the local newspaper in 2006 warning that the people who lived at the base of the slope feared they would die from a landslide that was expected. This is a powerful story about the threat of natural hazards anywhere.

I stumbled across this blog looking for news about the landslide and am amazed at the rest of the blog posts and photos Dave [Petley] has about landslides all over the world. I'm bookmarking the site.

[photo - EPA/MIKE NELSON im
age showing the displaced blocks at El Doweiqa]