Week 8: Mass Wasting in Madagascar

 



According to ThinkHazard.org, Madagascar is ranked high for mass wasting/ landslides. Madagascar is an island country, with high terrain slopes and inclining dunes/hills formed around the country, which often trigger these natural disasters to occur. Although gravity is the main instigator of these mass wastings, rather than there needing to be a preceding disaster to occur, Madagascar does experience a relatively high amount of earthquakes and heavy rainfall that can contribute to these landslides, in conjunction with natural force of gravity. Many houses in regions of the country are built upon unstable hills as well, which often leave infrastructure hurt due to these heavy rainfalls, especially. One of these particular post-storm events led to the destruction of many homes in February 2018 in the capital city, Antananarivo, and unfortunately took the lives of 7 civilians in the area.

 

https://floodlist.com/africa/madagascar-floods-antananarivo-january-2019

https://thinkhazard.org/en/report/150-madagascar/LS

Comments

  1. AracelyOctober 16, 2022 at 7:22 PM

    Hi Calista,
    Thank you for your wonderful post. Something I found interesting is that gravity is the main cause to mass wasting. I can see how having unstable homes on hills can affect its infrastructure. It would be great if the government would bring awareness and help with building homes in more secure areas to prevent casualties.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ana GGOctober 17, 2022 at 11:43 AM

    Good research-what type of measures you'd put in place to help with this hazard?

    ReplyDelete

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