Earthquake triggered landslide–Indian scenario

Landslide initiation due to earthquake is one of the most prevalent seismic hazard, which claims hundreds of lives in the Himalayan mountainous terrains of India. Number of landslides, maximum distance from the epicentre and total landslide area/volume are correlatable with earthquake magnitudes. Application of globally accepted earthquake triggered landslide parameter models do not match well with published data for the Himalayan earthquake triggered landslides. Considering the incompleteness of landslide inventories for most of the Himalayan earthquakes, development of regression equations show that in the Himalayan environment, landslide may trigger even with imperciptable earthquakes affecting longer distances having earthquake magnitude of more than 8 M with potential to affect more areas than the global expectations.