Geotechnical Visit to China [Day 1]

Having been lucky enough to join the JGS team on their collaborative trip to China I had the privilege of being taken to some sites which had been heavily damaged by the earthquake. As the mini bus headed out of Chengdu [成都]and got steadily closer to the fault which ruptured on the 12th of May, the damage to buildings got more and more severe, and the sight of rows upon row of blue tents could be seen at shorter intervals.

A view from the road of some lovely earthquake damage...

The following photos are of a huge landslide which instantaneously buried 60 people (as we were told by our guides).

(left)looking at the Toe of the slide and (right) up to the source of the slide (from the halfway point)

Looking down to the toe of the slide from the halfway point.

Some of the rocks were absolutely massive, the largest I saw was around 5m by 3m by 2m...which suggests an awesome amount of energy. The debris that we stood on was a good 10m in thickness at the very least.

The roads we travelled on were still quite make-shift in places, where only a narrow path had been cleared through slide debris, so that the van travelled with loose rock on one side and a shear drop on the other and was only wide enough for one car. Thus the horn was used alot, to warn other motorists of our impending presence.

The following photos are of a collapsed concrete bridge, we were also able to see some evidence of a surface fault rupture on one of the abutments.