The amazing Guatemalan landslide video posted by newspaper Prensa Libre is circulating widely among geobloggers thanks to Dave's Landslide Blog, but I link to it here because it's cautionary evidence of the power and terror of what landslides can do, especially for those of us who live in geologically active and mountainous terrains.
A local geologist was filming at the site of a slide that occurred Dec. 14 and closed the road. About 1:50 minutes into the video, the main slide starts.
The picture at right is from the with the Fire Earth site, showing the damage caused by a landslide outside San Cristobal, Guatemala, about 125 miles north of Guatemala City, January 5, 2009. Early reports talked about 10,000 tons of rock but a more recent number I saw is 25 million tons.