Short Essay On Landslides

Landslide and avalanche are forms of natural disasters that occurs due to natural processes of the Earth such as movement of rock or snow down a slope. The movement of rock, debris or earth down a slope is called a landslide. Landslide usually occurs when the materials which make up the hill slope fail to hold on or due to the force of gravity. Landslides can also be referred to as slope failure, landslip or slumps.
The most common types of landslides that occur are earth slides, rock falls and debris flow landslide. Landslide can happen at rates which range from almost undetectable to extremely rapid because landslides vary from slow movement to abrupt collapses. Events that occur suddenly and rapidly without prior warning are the most hazardous due to the pace at which material moves down the slope as well as the force of its resulting

They extent of landslide also varies whereby some landslide only affects a very small area or hill slope while others cause greater impact at much larger areas. The water content, volume of material and gradient of the slope are some of the factors that affects the distance travelled by landslide material. The landslide material can travel from a few centimetres to many kilometres depending on the factors mentioned above.
While landslides are usually associated with rock, debris and earth, avalanche, on the other hand is the sudden and fast flow of snow down a sloping surface. Avalanches are usually caused by mechanical failure when the force on the snow exceed its strength and causes the snow to loosen and gradually slide down a slope. As they start to slide, the speed of the avalanches increase rapidly as they entrain more snow and grow in size. The causes of avalanche very from metamorphic changes in the snowpack such as melting due to solar radiation to natural causes such as storms, earthquakes, rock fall, icefall and