The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.

On 16 July 2024, the Shirur landslide occurred in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, India. The failure left eight people dead or missing, and disrupted a major road (National Highway 66). A useful new open access paper in the journal Natural Hazards Research (Kundu et al. 2025) provides an initial analysis of this event.

The Shirur landslide occurred at [14.6040, 74.3710]. This is a Google Earth image of the site, captured in December 2021:-

Whilst this is a Planet Labs image of the site, captured in the last few days:-

Note the scar extending up the slope, the landslide debris in the river and the route of National Highway 66 traversing the site.

News Nine has an excellent drone video of the aftermath of the landslide:-

Kundu et al. (2025) describe a rotational landslide with a pre-failure length of about 80 metres, a width of 124 metres and a volume of about 90,000 m³. The authors have concluded that this landslide was caused by poor engineering practice associated with the road. They state that:

“The event was triggered by two primary factors: anthropogenic activities and intense rainfall. The significant anthropogenic activity in the region was the expansion of the Highway. A vertical cut was made, thus removing the toe section of the slope without any retention system.”

Technically, I would quibble at the terminology. The cause was the works on the road, which set up the slope to fail. The trigger was heavy rainfall. Kundu et al. (2025) have calculated that 198 mm of rainfall fell in the four days prior to the landslides, of which 77 mm occurred on the day of the failure.

The Shirur landslide occurred at 8:15 am, meaning that the road was busy at the time of the failure. In addition, the site was used as a parking area by truck drivers. Kundu et al. (2025) describe a complex search and rescue operation in difficult conditions. The search for a missing truck, and its driver Arjun, was a major news story in India. His remains were recovered from the river 72 days after the landslide occurred.

The paper by Kundu et al. (2025) provides a good analysis of a preventable landslide, underlining the importance of high quality engineering along highways, especially in areas with a monsoonal climate. The authors note that policy changes could have prevented the accident – first by ensuring that proper engineering is implemented along roads and second by preventing trucks from parking in areas of landslide hazard.

Reference

Kundu, P. et al. 2025. The Shirur landslide of July 2024 was triggered by intense rainfall and unchecked development. Natural Hazards Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nhres.2025.01.005

Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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