Cyclone Gabrielle’s Inflicted 140,000 Slips On Our Landscapes, With Scientists Still Counting

Cyclone Gabrielle’s inflicted 140,000 slips on our landscapes, with scientists still counting. Exhaustive analysis has created one of the world’s largest datasets of landslides from a single storm event creating new forecast models for the entire country. Landslides wreak an estimated $250 million in damage each year and pose one of our biggest natural hazards. They are considered significantly more dangerous than earthquakes. GNS teams collected aerial imagery from an area of 50,000sq km from Northland and Auckland to Waikato, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Tararua. They gathered nearly 17,000 photos from the air, found hidden hazards like landslide dams and failing slopes. More than six months on from the cyclone, a landslide dam near Tokomaru Bay is still being monitored as are two slow-moving landslides in Piha and Waiatarua near Auckland. More than 1500 landslide-affected homes still require more risk analysis.