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A powerful storm is pummeling California, bringing heavy rains that could help to counter the high winds fueling a fast-growing wildfire in the Sierra Nevada mountains, but they could also unleash dangerous flooding and landslides further south, where previous fires have stripped vegetation.
There were apocalyptic scenes overnight as the Pack Fire, burning near the popular Mammoth Mountain ski resort in Mono County damaged at least 15 homes.
Mandatory evacuation orders were in effect for at least two communities threatened by the Pack Fire in Mono County, which, according to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, was zero percent contained and burning across 3,400 acres on Friday morning.
Mammoth Lakes Police Department via AP
Many more areas were under evacuation warnings, meaning people who required more time to escape were advised to do so immediately.
The Pack Fire exploded late Thursday night in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, destroying more than a dozen homes as it spread quickly thanks to high winds from an atmospheric river. Conditions were so bad that crews grounded all firefighting aircraft overnight.
Heavy rainfall coming in with the storm off the Pacific could help crews gain control over the blaze on Friday, and scientists say the moisture laden storm could even bring an end to California’s fire season, but in the south of the state, many residents were concerned about potential mudslides in burn scar areas.
Some 23 million people were under flood watches across California on Friday morning.
Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty 
Officials are worried that hillsides charred by the devastating wildfires in Southern California early this year, left with no foliage to hold soil in place, could give way under significant rainfall.
The weather system pushed through some parts of California on Thursday, flooding roads and downing trees.
“It’s basically like a river,” Sierra Madre resident Gary Kelly said of the deluge. “Just pouring down when it’s like an inch in an hour.”
Kelly lives in the Eaton Fire burn scar area near Pasadena. His neighborhood has been put on notice for a heavy risk of flash flooding, so he was busy on Thursday preparing for the worst.
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For Kelly and others in the community, the scenes of devastation from flooding and landslides unleashed by storms in February, right after the wildfires, are still fresh on the mind.
“Anytime you have fire that’s spread through the hills, and then you have rain, a lot of that mud will come down, so that’s what I think everyone’s worried about,” he said.
This storm could deliver the Los Angeles area its wettest November in 40 years. Officials in the county have encouraged people to map out evacuation routes in the most vulnerable areas, including Malibu, where there could be intense mud flows and flooding.
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Standing on his golf course less than a mile from the Rancho Palos Verdes landslide zone where hundreds of homes are without gas and electricity, former President Trump on Friday called his property “very solid” and called on the government to help the troubled city.
“It’s a very wealthy area, but you also have people living here that are elderly and have fixed incomes and have houses that are gonna be, ya know, shoved into the Pacific Ocean if something’s not done,” the former president said.
Trump spoke to reporters at a campaign-related news conference at his seaside Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, which he bought from bankrupted developers in 2002 after the 18th hole slid into the ocean.
The landslide-prone city is under a state of emergency issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom this month because of extreme land movement triggered by back-to-back rainy winters. Neighborhoods near the golf course are under a city-issued evacuation warning, with the land moving about nine to 12 inches a week.
Before he began his lengthy remarks at an outdoor lectern — the Pacific Ocean behind him with Catalina Island visible after the morning fog cleared — Trump invited Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank to speak.
“Obviously, I’m a tiny bit nervous. This is a very big deal,” Cruikshank said as he held a red “Make America Great Again” hat in his hands.
Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank holds a “Make America Great Again” hat while listening to former President Trump speak at a news conference at Trump National Golf Course on Friday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Cruikshank told the Times on Thursday that he had, for several days, been trying to get on the Republican presidential nominee’s schedule. He had hoped to talk to Trump about the landslide before the news conference and had not expected to speak.
At the lectern, Cruikshank pleaded for help for the city of 40,000 people.
“We believe we can solve the problem, but we really need the assistance of the state of California and the federal government,” he said. “We have solutions out there for that, but the problem is bigger than the city of Rancho Palos Verdes.”
Trump, who is actively pursuing long-held plans to build up to 23 homes on the property, has struggled over the years to get city approvals for development, in large part because of the area’s instability.
The original owners of the property, then called the Ocean Trails Golf Club, went bankrupt after the 18th hole fell into the Pacific during a 1999 landslide while the course was still under construction. Trump bought the property in 2002 for $27 million.
He brought up the club Friday while attacking the leaders of San Francisco, who he said have allowed the city to decline. Trump compared costs at his club with an infamous $1.7-million public toilet that opened this year in San Francisco.
“They built a toilet for $1.7 million, and it’s not even nice. I saw pictures of it. I built this whole thing for less than that,” he said, sweeping his hand in reference to his property.
As for landslides, Trump said they “are something that can be taken care of.”
“This area’s very solid,” he said of his property. “But if you go down, a couple miles down, you’ll see something that’s pretty amazing. The mountain is moving, and it can be stopped, but they need some help from the government. So, I hope they get the help.”
Trump did not indicate if he was referring to the state government or federal government.
City officials say the golf club is about a half-mile from the active slide area.
Trump repeatedly trashed the Golden State but praised his club, saying he never has to advertise because “it’s always loaded up with golfers” and is “one of the best courses in the world.”
He added: “I have the ocean. Pebble Beach has the bay. The ocean’s better than the bay.”
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Hailey Branson-Potts
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The landslides that have forced authorities to shut off power and gas to hundreds of homes in Rancho Palos Verdes over the last two months highlight the risk of living on land susceptible to shifting and eroding with little warning.
Deep-seated landslides can occur weeks or months after heavy rainfall, when water has time to percolate down to weak zones of rock, creating a landslide plane under the weight of the overlying rock and soil, according to the California Geological Survey.
These types of landslides generally occur on moderately steep slopes.
If you are in the market to buy a home, experts say there are a few ways to determine whether you are buying a property with a high risk of landslides.
Landslides are part of the natural process that erodes mountains and moves sediment to the ocean through river systems. “It’s important to the basic erosion process,” said Jonathan Godt, the landslide hazards program coordinator for the United States Geological Survey.
“Over the human lifespan, we’re just a blink of an eye in geological time, so [landslide] issues or those processes don’t penetrate our consciousness until something like the unfortunate situation in Rancho Palos Verdes happens,” he said.
In 2011 the California Geological Survey created a map that shows that a majority of the state’s coast is at risk of landslides.
Homes built decades ago on ancient landslides that were at one time dormant are “fine for periods of time, [but] sometimes there are changes,” Godt said.
Several factors can alter a landslide’s active status, such as rainfall and earthquakes, but the warning signs are hard to see because they are “well beneath our feet and kind of hidden,” he said.
When properties in these areas are for sale, it’s up to buyers to gauge the land movement risk of the property they’re interested in.
If the seller or their agent knows that the property is on a seismic hazard zone that is subject to strong ground shaking, soil liquefaction or landslide, the information must be disclosed, according to the state Department of Real Estate.
But buyers are also responsible for conducting their own research.
At least two websites, Realtor.com and Redfin.com, provide information on the property’s natural disaster risk. Near the bottom of the listing there’s a section that breaks down the property’s risk of flooding, fires, heat, wind and air. Unfortunately, landslides and land movement are not factors that are disclosed.
Instead, potential buyers should conduct a Google search of the neighborhood alongside the words “landslide” or “natural disaster.” If there has been previous landslide activity, news articles about those problems probably will surface, said Timothy D. Stark, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois.
For more scientific data, buyers can turn to three landslide maps created by the California Geological Survey. The Reported Landslides Database has reports of landslides from local governments, the National Weather Service and citizen scientists. The Landslide Index allows users to request reports and other documentation of landslides in a specific area. The California Deep Landslide Susceptibility and Landslide Inventory includes a map of the state that marks areas of landslide susceptibility in dark red.
The California Department of Conservation also published a 2023 California Landslide Response report that included a page showing where deep-seated landslide activity might occur after the 2023 storms.
Stark also suggested using Google Earth Pro to look at aerial images over time to look for land movement.
When you look up an address or a neighborhood on Google Earth Pro, it will automatically show you the current image. To view past images, click the View tab and then Historical Imagery or click on a small clock icon above the 3D Viewer. You can then zoom in or out to change the start and end dates.
As you look at the surface of the area you’re researching, Stark said to look for ground surface features such as drops in nearby hillsides or reddish areas (that have exposed or no vegetation) that indicate steep slopes — all potential signs of prior slope movement.
Other signs of landslide risks can be spotted with the naked eye when visiting a property you are looking to buy.
When you’re visiting the neighborhood, take a look at the surrounding properties.
If the house is near or around hills, check out the hill or slope itself. A sign of land movement is if the ridge at the top of the hill is flat and then has a steep curve, a drop or cracks, suggesting a previous landslide.
Check the base of the hill; if the ground is heaved up, that’s a sign of movement.
Consider how close the hill or slope is to the property you’re interested in. If there is sudden land movement or a landslide, the higher the nearby hillside, the farther a landslide can travel, Stark said.
Other signs of past land movement in the area might include:
You can also check whether land is moving by taking a photograph of the offset marked lines on the ground or a crack in the pavement and revisit the same site a week or two later to see if there’s any visible difference, Stark said.
If you decide to make an offer for a home and start escrow, a home inspector can help you determine if past land movement has affected the property.
Stark said home inspectors will complete a home assessment and look at the walls, drywall and foundation for any types of cracks that suggest land movement. Inspectors will also look at whether the walls are straight and the floor inside the home is level.
Inspectors can also suggest if a geotechnical engineer is needed to conduct soil samples of the home. These tests can detect the behavior of the ground under varying conditions.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding and landslides typically are not covered by a general homeowners insurance policy.
However, homeowners can buy a non-standard policy, called a Difference in Condition policy, that’s often used to cover earthquake damage.
Jerry Becerra, president of Heffernan Barbary Insurance Services, said it’s possible to find a DIC policy covering earthquakes where the definition of earth movement is broad enough to include landslides. But he said such a policy could be pricey.
“Presuming you can find a DIC earthquake policy to cover a building located in an area prone to earth movement, the pricing would reflect the exposure,” Becerra said.
Underwriters rely on maps that show soil conditions, proximity to earthquake faults and other factors to determine rates, he said.
If the area is known to have a lot of earth movement, he said, it’s possible no company would be willing to provide coverage.
“I would not take a guess on actual pricing, but I expect it to be more than 1% of the coverage value and subject to high deductibles,” Becerra said.
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Karen Garcia
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Kathmandu, Nepal — A landslide swept two passenger buses carrying more than 50 people into a swollen river in central Nepal early Friday. Continuous rain and more landslides were making rescue efforts difficult.
Three survivors apparently swam to safety, but by late morning rescuers had not found any trace of the buses, which likely were submerged and swept downstream in the Trishuli River. Nepal’s rivers generally are fast-flowing due to the mountainous terrain. Heavy monsoon downpours in the past few days have swollen the waterways and turned their waters murky brown, making it even more difficult to see the wreckage.
Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane told parliament that 51 passengers were missing and that more than 500 rescue personnel had been assigned to the search operation.
RAJESH GHIMIRE/AFP/Getty
Elsewhere in the country, 17 people died and three more were injured due to landslides in different districts over the past 24 hours, he said.
The buses were on a key highway that connects Nepal’s capital to southern parts of the country when they were swept away at around 3 a.m. near Simaltal, about 75 miles west of Kathmandu.
More landslides blocked routes to the area in several places, government administrator Khima Nanada Bhusal said. Additional rescuers and security forces were sent to help with the rescue efforts. Police and army personnel were searching using rubber rafts. Divers with scuba gear were also dispatched, according the Chitwan district police.
The three survivors were being treated in the hospital, Bhusal said, adding that they reportedly jumped out of the bus and swam to the banks, where locals found them and took them to a nearby hospital.
A third bus was hit by another landslide on Friday morning a short distance away on the same highway. Bhusal said the driver was killed but it was not clear if there were any other casualties.
Nepal’s NDRRMA/Anadolu/Getty
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he was saddened by the news and expressed concern over recent flooding and landslides. He added that several government agencies were searching for the missing, in a post on the social media platform X.
On Thursday night, a landslide buried a hut and killed a family of seven near the resort town of Pokhara. The family were asleep when the landslide crushed their hut and damaged three more houses nearby.
Monsoon season brings heavy rains to Nepal from June to September, often triggering landslides in the mountainous Himalayan country.
The government has imposed a ban on passengers buses travelling at night in the areas where weather warnings have been issued, according to the Home Ministry.
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Jakarta, Indonesia — Rescue workers dug through tons of mud and rubble on Tuesday as they searched for dozens of missing people after a landslide hit an unauthorized gold mining area on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 23 people.
More than 100 villagers were digging for grains of gold on Sunday in the remote and hilly village of Bone Bolango when tons of mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried their makeshift camps, said Heriyanto, head of the provincial Search and Rescue Office.
Rescuers recovered more bodies on Tuesday in the devastated hamlet where the gold mine is located.
According to his office, 66 villagers managed to escape from the landslide, 23 were pulled out alive by rescuers, including 18 with injuries, and 23 bodies were recovered, including three women and a 4-year-old boy. About 35 others were missing, it said.
DIDOT/AFP/Getty
National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said torrential rains that have pounded the mountainous district since Saturday triggered the landslide and broke an embankment, causing floods up to the roofs of houses in five villages in Bone Bolango, which is part of a mountainous district in Gorontalo province. Nearly 300 houses were affected and more than 1,000 people fled for safety.
Authorities deployed more than 200 rescuers, including police and military personnel, with heavy equipment to search for the dead and missing in a rescue operation that has been hampered by heavy rains, unstable soil, and rugged, forested terrain, said Afifuddin Ilahude, a local rescue official.
“With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll is likely to rise,” Ilahude said, adding that sniffer dogs were being mobilized in the search.
Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency show rescue personnel using farm tools and their bare hands to pull a mud-caked body from the thick mud and placing it in a black bag to take away for burial.
DIDOT/AFP/Getty
Seasonal monsoon rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near floodplains.
At least 14 people were killed in May when torrential rain sparked flooding and a landslide in South Sulawesi’s Luwu district. More than 1,000 houses were affected by inundation, with 42 being swept off their foundations.
In March, torrential rains triggered flash floods and a landslide on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 19 people and leaving 7 others missing, officials said.
Climatologists say climate change has made the seasonal monsoons across Asia more intense and less predictable.
Informal mining operations are also common in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to thousands who labor in conditions with a high risk of serious injury or death. Landslides, flooding and collapses of tunnels are just some of the hazards facing miners. Much of gold ore processing involves highly toxic mercury and cyanide and workers frequently use little or no protection.
The country’s last major mining-related accident occurred in April 2022, when a landslide crashed onto an illegal traditional gold mine in North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district, killing 12 women who were looking for gold.
In February 2019, a makeshift wooden structure in an illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi province collapsed due to shifting soil and the large number of mining holes. More than 40 people were buried and died.
“Improved weather allowed us to recover more bodies,” said Heriyanto, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.
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There’s an entirely new coastline in Rancho Palos Verdes.
The rapidly expanding and accelerating complex of landslides on the southeastern tip of the Palos Verdes peninsula continues to wreak havoc on the area’s homes, roads and utilities, even forcing the iconic Wayfarers Chapel to abandon its location, at least temporarily.
But it has also led to a new and unforeseen change at the water’s edge: The seafloor has been pushed upward, literally creating new beach.
“That beach is brand new,” said Denny Jaconi, pointing to the rocky shoreline that he said didn’t exist just a few months ago. “There’s three or four of us that have been surfing down here our whole lives, and we’re just blown away because it’s unreal.”
The waters where Jaconi caught waves in his childhood — and even just months ago — have given way to a large, rocky coast, transformed as the force of the landslides has pushed bentonite up from below the sand.
“That beach is brand new,” said Denny Jaconi, pointing to the rocky shoreline that he said didn’t exist just a few months ago.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s changing like every week,” he said, as new reefs appear regularly.
Jaconi, 45, is a lifelong resident of the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, a small gated community just off Palos Verdes Drive South that has the most direct access to the evolving beach. The neighborhood’s large, white-sand beach has also recently bulged into a hillside; visitors coming from Seawall Road can no longer see the water until they climb up the now-mounded sand.
But the changes from the accelerating land movement don’t end there, Jaconi said.
Almost every home in their neighborhood has seen significant damage, with wall cracks, jammed doors, collapsed decks and shifting foundations worsening every day. The main road has become gravel in many spots after one too many pavement fractures. The community’s beachside tennis court was recently removed, its rippled floor no longer allowing for games.
For most who live there, it’s their first time seeing damage from the landslide complex, which is made up of at least five separate slides, including the Portuguese Bend slide, the largest and most active. Land movement has plagued this region since a portion of the ancient landslides was reactivated in the 1950s, but officials say the recent movement — the outcome of back-to-back wet winters — is unlike anything on record.
“Things are moving, unfortunately, faster than they ever have historically,” Mike Phipps, the city’s geologist, said at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. In his latest report, he noted that the landslide continues to affect new areas, moving in some spots as much as 13 inches a week. For decades, most areas saw movement closer to a few inches a year — if that.
That new and rapid movement has transformed the coastline.
“The Portuguese Beach Club area continues to experience major deformation along Seawall Road and bulging/uplift on the order of 4 to 5 feet across the beach,” Phipps wrote in his latest report. “This deformation appears to continue offshore … based on major emergence of land in the surf zone and nearshore zone at the southeasterly toe of the [Portuguese Bend landslide].”
The new shoreline is about 250 feet farther out to sea after parts of the seafloor moved an estimated 10 feet vertically, he said, a “manifestation of this bigger, deeper, longer movement of the Portuguese Bend landslide.”
Although this outcome is new for the area, geologist El Hachemi Bouali called the movement “actually quite normal for a landslide.”
“In general, a landslide complex will lose material at the top and it will gain material at the bottom,” said Bouali, an assistant professor of geosciences for Nevada State University who has long studied the Portuguese Bend landslide complex. “If enough material accumulates at the bottom and it is not removed through erosion, there may be bulging or uplift that occurs as materials accumulate and create upward deformation.”
Jaconi said it’s been unreal to watch these geological forces play out in real time, on an area that he thought he knew so well.
“To be showing our kids this whole new coastline … it’s a completely different place,” he said.
But the coastal changes have also been a bright spot for Jaconi amid the mounting disaster that has broken countless water and gas lines, red-tagged at least two homes in the area and forced his family to pursue dramatic repairs to try to save, and make safe, their home.
The ongoing landslide in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood in Palos Verdes has caused considerable damage to some homes.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
He said the new beach has made the water clearer, now that the waves hit rock instead of a dusty hillside, creating a better habitat for marine life and new swimming spots.
“This is like our solace through all this disaster,” Jaconi said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, we’ve got a private beach down there and a couple of new surf spots.’”
He doesn’t know whether officials will ever find a way to slow the devastating land movement. But he remains hopeful about a future for his family here, with dreams of raising his 5-month-old son on the same — well, different — coast where he grew up.
“We have new tide pools here for kids,” he said. “There’s new kelp beds out there, there was a huge pelican population that just left. … Now we’ve got like 50 feet of coastline — between ocean and landslide.”
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Grace Toohey
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Melbourne, Australia — More than 100 people are believed to have been killed Friday in a landslide that buried a village in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The landslide reportedly hit Kaokalam village in Enga province, about 370 miles northwest of the South Pacific island nation’s capital of Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m. local time, ABC reported.
Residents say current estimates of the death toll are above 100, although authorities haven’t confirmed that figure. Villagers said the number of people killed could be much higher.
Videos on social media show locals pulling bodies out that were buried under rocks and trees.
STR / AFP via Getty Images
The Papua New Guinea government and police didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Elizabeth Laruma, who runs a women’s business association in Porgera, a town in the same province near the Porgera Gold Mine, said village houses were flattened when the side of a mountain gave way.
“It has occurred when people were still asleep in the early hours, and the entire village has gone down,” Laruma told ABC. “From what I can presume, it’s about 100-plus people who are buried beneath the ground.”
The landslide blocked the road between Porgera and the village, she said, raising concerns about the town’s own supply of fuel and goods.
Village resident Ninga Role, who was away when the landslide struck, expects at least four of his relatives have died.
“There are some huge stones and plants, trees. The buildings collapsed,” Role said. “These things are making it hard to find the bodies fast.”
STR / AFP via Getty Images
Reuters reports that local media said the landslide affected operations at the Porgera gold mine, which is run by Barrick Gold through Barrick Niugini Ltd, a joint venture with China’s Zijin Mining. Barrick Gold didn’t immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside normal business hours.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cites.
With 10 million people, it is also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to some 27 million.
Located just south of the equator, the area gets frequent heavy rains, Agence France-Presse points out, adding that there’s been intense rainfall and flooding this year. At least 23 people were killed by a landslide in a nearby province in March.
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More than 100 people are believed to have been killed Friday in a landslide in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.The landslide reportedly hit Kaokalam Village in Enga Province, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of the South Pacific island nation’s capital of Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m. local time.Residents say current estimates of the death toll are above 100, although authorities have not confirmed this figure. Villagers said the number of people killed could be much higher.Social media video shows locals pulling out buried bodies.The Papua New Guinea government and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cities.With 10 million people, it is also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to 27 million.
More than 100 people are believed to have been killed Friday in a landslide in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The landslide reportedly hit Kaokalam Village in Enga Province, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of the South Pacific island nation’s capital of Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m. local time.
Residents say current estimates of the death toll are above 100, although authorities have not confirmed this figure. Villagers said the number of people killed could be much higher.
Social media video shows locals pulling out buried bodies.
The Papua New Guinea government and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cities.
With 10 million people, it is also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to 27 million.
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Rancho Palos Verdes officials are preparing to close a section of Palos Verdes Drive South for repairs after the two-lane roadway suffered damage from an accelerating landslide complex that continues to wreak havoc on the coastal city.
Palos Verdes Drive South is a major two-lane road that spans a 15-mile stretch of the California coast along which 15,000 vehicles pass every day, officials said. At the moment, visible cracks in the asphalt can be seen where the road has fallen into disrepair due to shifting sediment.
“We’re doing short-term repairs right now,” said City Manager Ara Mihranian. But an “imminent road closure” will take place over the next month to address a “severe drop” in the roadway that locals call “the ski jump,” he said.
Caltrans officials are recommending that this section of roadway be flatted out to some extent, Mihranian said. The section runs about a quarter of a mile between Narcissa and Peppertree drives. Details of the planned road closure and its repairs will be presented to the City Council on April 2.
The Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex that underlies much of the city has been slowly shifting for decades, but over the last few months, the movement has increased alarmingly. Heavy rains over the past two winters have contributed to the problem.
The land in some areas is descending towards the Pacific Ocean at a rate of about half an inch per day, according to Michael Phipps, a geologist working for the city. The landslide has already damaged some homes and recently forced the closure of the historic Wayfarer’s Chapel, a popular wedding site perched on a hillside overlooking the ocean.
In a recent report presented to the City Council, Phipps found that the current pace is three or four times the rate recorded in 2023.
A particular type of soil makes the Portuguese Bend especially vulnerable to landslides, Phipps said. Millions of years ago a volcanic eruption deposited ash that became bentonite clay. “When [bentonite] gets wet, it becomes even weaker,” said Phipps. “So we’ve really got the worst of all situations.”
The city is using underground pumps called dewatering wells to drain the water table to help stabilize the land, officials said. The city has also halted development in certain affected areas. So far, Mihranian said, only two damaged homes have been marked as uninhabitable.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded Rancho Palos Verdes $33 million dollars to help with remediation efforts. Now the city is proposing that $8 million of that money be allocated for emergency hydraugers, drains that would be bored into hillsides to release excess water.
“There’s other discussions about trying to intercept the water that’s coming down to natural canyons up into the head of the landslide,” Phipps said. But all the city’s measures will at best only slow the landslide to imperceptible movement, not completely stop it, he said.
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Jireh Deng
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SHERMAN OAKS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — At least three homes in Sherman Oaks were impacted by a landslide, prompting some people to be evacuated overnight.
Firefighters responded to N. Ventura Canyon Avenue around 2:51 a.m. Wednesday after reports of a large tree and wires down in the backyard of a residence, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
They discovered a large portion of the hillside had slid down toward homes in the area.
A home that was under construction sustained the most damage and will be red-tagged, officials said. One of the other homes was yellow-tagged.
LAFD’s Cody Weireter described the damage that was left behind.
“You have a large debris of mud, vegetation, trees… and rocks and concrete just come down into one of the homes that was under construction,” he told Eyewitness News. “A portion of one of the homes’ outdoor pool area has actually separated form that main foundation, and so obviously that’s one of our biggest concerns right now.”
Video from the scene shows a pool house and pool that sustained significant damage with large cracks on the ground. Crews pumped the water out of the pool to reduce the stress on the hillside.
There were people inside two of the homes at the time of the landslide. They all safely evacuated. No injuries were reported.
DEVELOPING: We will add more details to this report as they become available.
Copyright © 2024 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Jaysha Patel
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The wall of an open pit mine in central Venezuela collapsed on Tuesday, reportedly leaving dozens of workers trapped under mud and sparking a frantic rescue effort. Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional cited Edgar Colina Reyes, the government security secretary for Bolivar, the nearest city to the mine in the town of La Paragua, as confirming the accident, but his office had provided no further detail as of Tuesday evening.
CNN’s Spanish language service quoted local mayor Yorgi Arciniega as saying at least 30 people were killed in the collapse, with about 100 more buried, but there was no immediate confirmation of that toll from national officials.
The newspaper, and regional outlet Correo del Caroni, said Reyes was heading for the Bulla Loca mine Wednesday morning to assess the situation.
The newspapers both quoted a local journalist as saying the mine wall that collapsed was approximately 115 feet tall. Photos posted to social media from the scene showed a large, open pit of clay-colored mud, with workers and others racing to help people injured or trapped by the apparent landslide.
Iron ore, gold, bauxite and other minerals are extracted from mines across the Venezuelan state of Bolivar, including many unsanctioned sites.
The last major accident in the region, according to Correo del Caroni, was only a couple months ago in the Gran Sabana district. At least 12 people were reportedly killed in that incident, which came only a month after a previous accident at the same mine that did not result in any deaths, according to the newspaper.
Local journalist Fritz Sanchez was sharing images and information from the Bulla Loca mine on his social media accounts Tuesday.
“What we were warned of this past December has happened today,” he said in one post. “They tell me of a collapse in the Bulla Local mine, which has left more than 100 people buried.”
He indicated the pit may have been an illegal gold mining operation, but there was no information immediately available from Venezuelan authorities to confirm the nature of the site or the number of people trapped or injured.
Human rights groups have previously voiced serious concern over the number of children working in Venezuela’s open gold mines.
YRIS PAUL/AFP/Getty
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MALIBU, Calif. (KABC) — With this week’s storm shaking debris and mud loose from Southern California hillsides, Caltrans crews have been busy keeping canyon routes clear.
Canyon routes from the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County to Malibu, including Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Malibu Canyon Road, remain open as of Tuesday afternoon.
Caltrans crews were positioned in advance of the storm in areas known to be prone to flooding. They were staffing the area 24 hours a day, rotating in 12-hour shifts, checking drainage systems and carrying pumps in areas prone to flooding.
“Everybody was pretty much all hands on deck,” said Caltrans spokesman Jim Medina.
On Monday, falling boulders blocked at least one lane of Pacific Coast Highway just north of Topanga State Beach. By Tuesday the lanes were cleared.
“I think we’re doing fairly well,” Medina said. “We still have to get through today and tomorrow.”
In Ventura County, tourists and locals were watching massive waves break on the beach and splash up. In areas near where the river flowed into the ocean, the water appeared much muddier than usual.
Authorities are asking Southern California drivers to stay off the roads during the current storm when possible. The roads remain slick, prone to flooding and damaged by potholes.
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Sid Garcia
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