Mudslide in Zhouqu County in Gansu, China (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Mudslide in Zhouqu County in Gansu, China

Caption

Around midnight on Aug. 8, 2010, a violent surge of loosened earth roared down mountain slopes and slammed into quietly sleeping neighborhoods in Zhouqu County in Gansu, China. The catastrophic mudslides -- the deadliest in decades according to state media -- buried some areas under as much as 23 feet (7 meters) of suffocating sludge. 1,765 people died. Property damages totaled an estimated $759 million. Cutting from right to left, this detailed image, from DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite, shows the largest slide in the lower part of the city on Aug. 10, 2010.

Credit

Image from WorldView-2 © 2010 by DigitalGlobe

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