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Abstract: The 2008.5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake (seismic magnitude Mw 7.9 according to the USGS) triggered a great number of landslides. A spatial database of landslides is built by interpreting the remote sensing (RS) data which covers 11 counties severely damaged by the earthquake with area of about 31,686.12km2. The geological settings of the study area are detailed mapped including geologic structure and lithology. The digital elevation model (DEM) of the study area with resolution of 30m×30m is presented to address the topographic characteristics. Correlations between the occurrence of landslides with geological settings i.e. active faults (the coseismic surface ruptures), geological unit, slope gradient, slope elevation as well as slope aspect are analyzed using spatial modeling in GIS with the aids of field investigations. It can be concluded that the distance to the causative faults and slope gradient are much more important than other factors. Landslides are clustered distributed along the causative faults of F2 and F3, and landslides incidence are dramatically decreasing with the increasing of the distance to the causative faults. The landslides incidence has an obvious increase near the active faults i.e. F1. Landslide concentration (LC, landslides/km2) has an obvious exponent increase with slope gradient. However, LC has no obvious relationship with geological unit and slope elevation; the difference of LC value in each geological unit (each slope elevation category) maybe have been the result affected by slope gradient for each geological unit (each slope elevation category) and distance of each geological unit (each slope elevation category) to causative fault zone. Isoseismal map reflects the incidence of landslides in some degree, and LC increases dramatically with Intensity increasing, almost all landslides occurred in the region above VI degree. Statistics result also indicates that in the near field of causative faults, landslides tend to have the initial sliding direction similar to the movement of the causative faults. And preliminary study shows that landslides incidence varies in different slopes with different structure, and consequent slopes and obsequent slopes have a higher landslides incidence than other layered slopes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A large and catastrophic rock avalanche occurred at the Xinmo village in the Maoxian county of the Sichuan province of China on June 24, 2017. The avalanche destroyed 64 houses and killed 10 people, and 73 people were reported to be missing. In this study, we focused on the contributions of six historical earthquakes to the collapse of rocks in the source area and the landslide amplification caused by the entrainment of pre-existing deposits on the landslide path. The historical earthquakes in this area contributed different levels of damage on the source rocks; particularly, the 1933 Diexi earthquake induced a few initial cracks in rocks at the crest of the steep hillslope. Under the combined time-effects of long-term weathering and gravity, the rock blocks in the source area were detached from the crest along the intersecting cracks and over-dip soft layer (namely, the sliding surface). The avalanche was amplified by the entrainment of colluvium on its path. The influence of the colluvium on the movement process of the Xinmo landslide was modelled by the GPU-based parallel discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) method, and the effect of the impact and entrainment in the debris flow was rigorously analysed. The results indicate that the impact and entrainment can continuously increase the volume of debris flow, and the thickness of the colluvium was established to be in the range of 25.9–33.9 m based on the analysis of the deposit pattern and movement duration of the avalanche. There were numerous unstable rocks induced by historical earthquakes, at the crests of steep hill slopes in the earthquake-stricken area. With long-term damage caused by environmental factors and gravity, the failure of unstable rocks with high potential energy is likely to cause severe disasters. The excess pore water pressure likely to be present in the colluvium or deposits during impact and entrainment can considerably reduce the effective stress and degrade friction resistance along the runout path. As a result, the landslide can be intensively amplified owing to the effect of impact and entrainment under a lower friction resistance • The volume of rock avalanche sharply increased by entrainment effects. • The rocks at the source were damaged by historical earthquakes. • The colluvium exerts different influences on the movement of the avalanche with an increase in its thickness. • Numerous earthquake-damaged rocks at the summit of mountains are hazardous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]