A major landslide in China yesterday killed 21 forestry workers. Satellite imagery suggests that the slope showed signs of disturbance before the failure.
On 7 July 2026, a major landslide struck Renzang Village, which is located in the administrative area of Nanhe Township in Longnan City, Gansu Province, China. Xinhua reports that 33 people were trapped by the landslide. Of these, 21 people were killed and a further seven people were injured.
Renzang appears to be located at [34.0920, 104.215470], but this is not the precise location of the landslide. Xinhua released this image of the aftermath of the event:-
It is quite surprising that a landslide on this scale and in this location was able to bury 33 people. A news report (in Mandarin) suggests that they were forestry workers located at the Minjiang Forestry Farm.
CCA has an article that gives a location as shown below – this corresponds to [34.08895, 104.19551]:-
Parts of China are suffering extremely heavy rainfall at the moment, triggering landslides and flooding. However, the images do not suggest heavy rainfall at this site, and the Caixin report indicates that:
“The Longnan Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources stated that preliminary assessments indicate the geological disaster was triggered by factors such as steep terrain, unique geological structure, and localized erosion.”
This image does not show a building at the foot of the slope that would have housed 33 people. Recent satellite imagery also does not show a structure at this site. I wonder therefore what the 33 people were doing at this location at the time of the landslide? Were they undertaking an activity that weakened the slope? Or were they, for example, clearing the channel after a smaller landslide?
There is an intriguing hint in a Sentinel image that was collected 4 July 2026:-
I have orientated this image in line with the Google Earth image above (so East is towards the top). There is definitely fresh disturbance to the slope that failed that is just visible. There is a Sentinel image dated 5 May 2026 that does not show this change.
Interestingly, Sentinel also captured an image later on 7 July 2026, the day of the failure, which shows the aftermath of the landslide:-
This is the worst landslide in terms of fatalities to have affected China so far this year. However, we need to keep a close eye on Super Typhoon Bavi, which is forecast to brush past the northern side of Taiwan at the weekend before making landfall in eastern China. This is likely to bring very large rainfall totals.
Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Source: Science – eos
