TY - JOUR PY - 2020// TI - The violent blasts that can add to an avalanche's devastation (Editorial) JO - Nature A1 - No Author(s) Listed, SP - ePub EP - ePub VL - ePub IS - ePub N2 - Rock falls and rock avalanches, which are dangerous enough in their own right, sometimes unleash an additional peril: powerful blasts of air that can flatten trees more than a kilometre away. Now scientists have documented the conditions that make these 'airblasts' more likely. Although some airblasts have proved fatal, little research has been done to document their destructive potential, and landslide risk assessments do not account for them. To fill this gap, Ivanna Penna at the Geological Survey of Norway in Trondheim and her colleagues analysed airblasts that have occurred around the world, including a previously unreported 2015 event in the Yumthang Valley in the Indian Himalayas. Using data from both ground and aerial drone surveys, they mapped the destruction of the airblast that followed the Yumthang rock fall. This allowed them to estimate the event's maximum wind speed, which was 385 kilometres per hour...

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0028-0836 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02514-y ID - ref1 ER -