Japan - the land of big landslides

Japanese history has recorded many landslides causing serious consequences, killing a few hundred people at a time. This is one of the countries with the most severe landslide in the world.

Historically geologically, Japan is an archipelago within the Pacific volcanic belt, so the geological structure is unstable . The original cliffs of mountain formations in Japan are mostly signs of sliding surfaces of tectonic faults. Most islands in this archipelago are the product of the tectonic process and the tectonic fault that the city.

Model of a landslide solution in Japan.

According to a scientific report of the Institute of Transportation Science and Technology - Ministry of Transport, geological characteristics combined with a rainy climate, must directly bear many storms from the Pacific that Japan become one of the countries affected by the phenomenon of land slump .

The Japanese archipelago consists of 5 main island groups, divided into 12 provinces, scattered over a length of 3000km in the north-south direction, 75% of the total area of ​​the continent is mountainous. The country has 77 active volcanoes, accounting for 10% of the world. Japan is located next to the belt directly affected by earthquakes causing earthquakes at a depth of 100-200 km from the earth's crust.

Harsh natural conditions have a direct impact on the stability of the terrain and buildings in Japan more than anywhere in the world. The country experienced a number of landslide-related catastrophes , such as the large landslide that occurred in Kumamoto and Nagasaki in 1972, which killed 543 people, the 1982 landslide in Nagasakil that killed 493 people.

In 1984, a large landslide created huge sliding blocks of up to 34 million cubic meters, leaving 15 people at Ontake San village in Nagano district. The landslide in Tamanoki in Niigata Prefecture in 1985 killed 10 people; landslide at Jizuki in Nagano city in 1985 killed 26 people. In the southern island of Hyogo, the earthquake on January 17, 1995 caused landslides, killing more than 300 people.