A 200,000 cubic metre rockslide in a remote area of Tibet on Sunday has left ten people dead or missing.
On 1 June 2025 a large rockslide occurred in Muta township in Chamdo (Qamdo) metropolitan area in Tibet. Note that Chinese media sources call this area Xizang Autonomous Region, but it is what most of us know as Tibet. Chinese media reports, which can be unreliable from Tibet, indicate that three people are confirmed to have been killed with a further seven reported to be missing. Two people were injured.
CGTN has a video online showing the landslide, which includes drone footage. The area has a dusting of snow, which makes interpretation difficult. CCTV also has the same footage posted to Youtube:-
This video includes imagery of the head scarp of the landslide:-
There is also a good image of the full length of the rockslide:-
This landslide has a slightly unusual morphology, with much of the material from the upper portion of the slope stalled on the hillside. However, the mass of material in the valley floor is large, as this image shows:-
The landslide has blocked the valley and a small lake has started to develop. This will need to be managed. Note the run up of the landslide deposit on the opposite slope, which indicates that the mass was moving comparatively quickly. There are two people on the left of the image for scale.
The CGTN video suggests that the landslide was about 200,000 m3, which would be around 500,000 tonnes.
The precise location of this event is unclear to me. Chamdo is a large area centred on [31.1362, 97.2359]. A report by Xinhua suggests that the landslide occurred in Dengqen County (Dêngqên County), which is in the northwest of Chamdo, centred on [31.5396, 95.4156]. Wikidata indicates that Muta is located at [32.30957, 95.09376], and Google maps has this location as “Mutaxiang”, with “Muta town” a little to the west, so this is credible. We shall have to wait for a clear day to obtain satellite imagery to confirm this – given the limited loss of life, the landslide has probably not struck Muta itself.
As usual for China, especially when it comes to Tibet, the media footage includes lots of images of the response of the authorities to the disaster. Sadly, the likelihood of the missing people being recovered alive is very low.
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