Tuesday 31 March 2020

Landslide derails train in Hunan Province, China.

A train has derailed after hitting a landslide in Hunan Province, China, on Monday 30 March 2020. The driver of the train, a Guangzhou Railway Group operated service between Jinan and Guangzhou, attempted to brake when he saw the landslip, on the southbound section of rail between Matianxu and Qifengdu stations in Yongxing County, but was unable to prevent the collision. The incident resulted in six carriages derailing, one of which subsequently caught fire, one person dying, and 127 people being injured, four of them seriously.

Rescue workers attend a train derailment caused by a landslide in Hunan Province, China, on Monday 30 March 2020. Hunan Emergency Management Department Fire Rescue Bureau.

The incident is reported to have occurred following several days of heavy rain associated with the onset of the Monsoon Season, which typically lasts from the begining of April to the middle of August in Hunan. 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. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. 

Engineers begin the process of clearing the site of a train derailment in Hunan Province on 30 March 2020. AFP.

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.

See also...

https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2019/11/magnitude-earthquake-in-guangxi.htmlhttps://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2019/10/magnitude-52-earthquake-in-guangxi.html
https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2019/10/chloeia-parva-chloeia-bimaculata.htmlhttps://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2019/07/thirty-six-confirmed-deaths-following.html
https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2018/12/seven-killed-in-accident-at-chinese.htmlhttps://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2017/12/woman-swallowed-by-sinkhole-in.html
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