Investigations and stability analyses of Malin village landslide of Pune district, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

This paper presents field investigations and numerical analyses of the landslide, affecting Malin village of Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The Malin village was wiped out due to Malin landslide, occurred on July 30, 2014; however, only a primary school and few houses remained safe during the event, and mass of the people buried in debris of slide. To study the causes of the event, field study has been carried out. Representative samples of slope-forming geomaterials (soil/rock) have been collected at three locations of the hill viz. L1 (bottom of the hill), L2 (middle of the hill) and L3 (top of the hill) along with massive and vesicular basalt for the determination of the geotechnical properties in the laboratory. The estimated geotechnical properties have been used for numerical modeling of the hill slope that has been performed to calculate factor of safety, maximum displacement, displacement direction and accumulated maximum shear strain with the help of numerical programs based on limit equilibrium method and finite element method approaches, respectively. This study shows that the hill slope was unstable with FoS < 1 and prone to failure. It was triggered by various man-made and natural factors like heavy rainfall, unscientific construction activities at the top of the hill and along the hill, unplanned cultivations and lack of drainage system. Also, the results of the numerical analysis can be successfully implemented to minimize/reduce impact and frequency of landslide in the area of similar morphology.