A passenger travelling in a car near the town of Mersing in Johol State, Peninsula Malaysia, on Sunday 14 January 2017 has been injured by a landslide that caused it to plunge into a ravine. The passenger has been identified as Swee Ah Peng, 60, who was one of three people in the vehicle when the road gave way beneath it, causing it to fall 15 m downslope, at about 2.30 pm local time. The incident happened following several days of heavy rain in the area. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather
events,
as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and
sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids.
The scene of a landslide in Johol State, Malaysia, on 14 January 2017. Bernama.
Malaysia has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven
by winds from the South China Sea that lasts from November to February
and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean from March to October. Such a double Monsoon Season is common
close
to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes
and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices
the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest.
The winds that drive the Northeast and Southwest Monsoons in Southeast Asia. Mynewshub.
Monsoons
are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the
warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by
the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it
back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than
that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in
water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a
high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the
tropical dry season the situation is reversed, as the air over the land
cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the
sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is
rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.
Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.
Malaysia has become increasingly landslip-prone in recent years due to extensive deforestation, which leaves soil exposed to heavy tropical rainfall. Concerns have also been raised about the large number of construction sites on steep hillslopes in urban areas, where workers are particularly vulnerable to landslip events during the Monsoon Seasons.
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