LANDSLIDES CAUSED BY MAJOR EARTHQUAKES (Mw ≥6.6): 1998-2015

Earthquakes cause widespread landslides, in addition to other geotechnical hazards depending on the geology and geomorphology. The factors controlling Eartquake indivual (EI) landslides reported in literature evaluated for the major earthquakes (Mw ≥6.6) that occurred between 1998 – 2015. Correlation of controlling factors considered to be causing seismic landslides such as; earthquake magnitute, Peak ground acceleration (PGA) times duration of the ground shaking, focal depth, distance from the epicentre and ruptured fault, geology, slope angle, elevation and slope aspect are evaluated to establish their relationship with landslides. A quantitative technique of data analysis was applied to correlate variables sa as to establish their relationship. Earthquake and landslide data has been drawn from secondary sources including; scientific and technical papers, technical reports, seismological and landslides data by USGS, internet sites and relevant book. It has been observed that coseismic landslide occurrence has strong positive correlations with the earthquake magnitute and with the PGA times shaking duration. Besides, landslides occurrence shows a strong correlation with respect to geology, fault typr, slope angle and slope height. The findings also indicate that here is a negative correlation between ca-seismic landslide spatial distribution and the distance from the epicentre of the earthquake and surface rupture. This work is a a continuation of similar studies made by on the landslide caused major earthquakes occurred up to 1980 by Keffer (1984) and between 1980 – 1997 by Rodrigues et all (1999).