The rock avalanche that destroyed the village of Xinmo in Sichuan, China, on June 24th, 2017, brought the issue of landslide risk and disaster chain management in highly seismic regions back into the spotlight. The long-term post-seismic behaviour of mountain slopes is complex and hardly predictable. Nevertheless, the integrated use of field monitoring, remote sensing and real-time predictive modelling can help to set-up effective early warning systems, provide timely alarms, optimize rescue operations and perform secondary hazard assessments.

A catastrophic flowslide occurred at the Hongao dumpsite on 20 December 2015 in the Guangming New District of Shenzhen, China. The flowslide caused 77 causalities and damaged 33 buildings. In the absence of extreme weather conditions and seismic activity, the causes of the failure were analyzed on the basis of multi-temporal remote-sensing images, site investigation, in situ tests, laboratory tests, and numerical analyses. Site investigations showed that the volume of the displaced material was 2.32  ×  106 m3 and the volume of the pre-failure waste filling was 6.27  ×  106 m3.