A quick clay landslide in the Quebec region has destroyed most of a farm and a local road.
Over the next few days I will try to bring the blog up to date with some of the major landslides that have occurred whilst I have been on leave.
To start, on 15 July 2025 an interesting quick clay landslide occurred at the Rivière-Blanche Est range, in Saint-Thuribe, in Portneuf, Canada. Radio Canada has an excellent piece on this event (in French) that includes images and videos. They have also posted this video (again, in French) that includes some very good aerial imagery of the site:-
This includes the still below:-
The location of this landslide is, I think, [46.69818, -72.15138]. This is a Google Earth image of the site collected in July 2024:-
The news reports that I have read do not highlight an obvious trigger for this landslide, but it is interesting to note that the toe is located on the outside of the river bend, where erosion is high. There had been a period of rainfall prior to the landslide, but this does not seem to have been exceptional.
No-one was killed or injured in the landslide, but there is substantial loss of farmland and, in all probability, the farm buildings. The road has also been destroyed. Quick clay landslides are a known hazard in this part of Quebec, but interestingly this site was not classified as being potentially exposed to landslides.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to loyal reader Maurice, and others, for highlighting this event.
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