Monitoring technology allowed evacuation hours before the largest non-volcanic landslide in modern N. American history

[Emily]

http://www.livescience.com/42447-mine-landslide-triggered-earthquakes.html

Massive Utah Landslide Triggered Earthquakes
By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor | January 09, 2014 12:26pm ET

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'True success story'

For decades, mine operators have monitored the stability of pit slopes within the Bingham Canyon mine using a surveillance network that included automated early-warning sensors. This helped identify and track signs of increasing instability throughout early 2013, leading mine operators to successfully forecast a landslide and evacuate the area beforehand.

"The company invested a lot of money to monitor the sides of the pit, and the fact they evacuated the mine the day of the landslide so that were was no one in the pit at the time it happened is a true success story," said study lead author Kristine Pankow, a seismologist at the University of Utah...

Less costly technology is already being developed:

http://www.uah.edu/news/research/6874-landslide-sensors-at-uah-may-save-lives-worldwide#.U0I1H6KaeCk

Landslide sensors at UAH may save lives worldwide

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Oct. 24, 2013) - Using technology found in cell phones, inexpensive sensors being tested at Monte Sano State Park might one day soon save lives by giving advance warning of deadly landslides in at-risk areas around the world.

The wireless test sensors are installed around an active landslide zone in the park. A team from the Atmospheric Science Department at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is studying the sensors *to see whether they can provide useful information about soil stability and the likelihood of an impending landslide.

Recent research estimated that more than 4,500 people are killed and thousands of others are injured in landslides around the world every year...