DUSHANBE (Avesta news agency) – Ten persons were killed in mudslide on Friday in eastern Tajikistan, the country’s Emergency Situations Committee said Saturday. The tragedy took place in the Fayzabad district, about 50 km from Dushanbe.

(Photo: AFP)

Dozens of residents of the village of Yakabedi are trapped in their houses and covered by mud. Ten bodies have been recovered as rescue works are under way.

Earlier in February, avalanches caused by abrupt warming and heavy snowfall killed several people in Tajikistan.

Mountains cover 93% of the country, and avalanches and mudslides kill every year. The potential for a catastrophic co-seismic rock-slope failure to devastate an area of several tens of km2 was demonstrated by the 1949 Ms7.4 Khait earthquake in Tajikistan, which triggered a rock avalanche of 250×106 m³, burying a town with several thousand inhabitants. For this reason, recognition of sites with the potential to fail catastrophically and mobilise such extraordinary volumes of rock, is an important task for geo(morph)logical and geotechnical studies in high mountainous regions.