A catastrophic rainfall-induced high landslide, occurred on December 4, 2020, in the Qingliucun mountainous area of Southwest China

The Qingliucun mountainous area is characterized by steep terrain, large topographic variation, a considerable free face, and massive highly fissured clayey soils. A high landslide started on June 29 2020, rapidly evolving and eventually causing, on December 4, 2020, a global sliding mass to move downward rapidly. This event seriously damaged houses and the main mountainous road to Qingliucun village on the mountainous platform, and temporarily blocked the Mengtun River, causing a 100-m long dammed lake. This work introduces the main features of this landslide and the earlier results of studies on this event. The main geological characteristics of the site and the morphological features of the landslide are presented. Moreover, the failure mechanism of the landslide is revealed according to the outcomes of site reconnaissance and monitoring as well as limit equilibrium stability analysis. Finally, this work focuses on the empirical estimation of landslide runout distance, which is instrumental in the prevention and mitigation of similar high landslide hazards.