1 dead, 5 missing after landslide in Oita Prefecture

In addition to reactive measures, what proactive measures are being taken to protect people from landslides in the 21st century?

if you cut trees on a mountain or live on a fault line, expect this. otherwise live in concrete.

that would be very difficult since more than 80% of the land mass are mountains and so many rivers too. Guess you must be a city person?

I'm not a city person. Please read my post again. Its says specifically UNDER a mountain, so basically exactly at the base of the mountain. And not ON THE BANK of a river. So that's not 80% of the land mass.

Japanese Tactics? What's the name of the book?

Bansenshukai 萬川集海

I'm pretty sure you can find copies in other languages. I tried to read the Japanese. It was an absolute nightmare.

Brrrr, landslides and this without rain, very worrisome. Perhaps the government should do some mountain stability checks.

I've read in a book about Japanese tactics that you never should live below a mountain or on the bank of a river, because it can be dangerous. Lets hope these people are found.

Japanese Tactics? What's the name of the book? But yes, unlike in the past I would also rather live a bit further away from mountains and rivers.

Thank you for the SDF for helping.

I've read in a book about Japanese tactics that you never should live below a mountain or on the bank of a river, because it can be dangerous. Lets hope these people are found.

Fingers crossed for the people trapped underneath it.

We live below a slope ourselves, so I had a little look for the site where this occurred. It's very close to the Yukihirochiku Community Center along Route 702. Its a south east facing slope, above a bend in the river. From Google Earth, it looks like the slope goes up 160m in about 340m of flat, making it over 25 degrees in angle, i.e., steep. On Street View from Route 702, large metal barriers can clearly be seen behind the houses where the slide happened.

Again fingers crossed for the people. It must have been terrifying.

Very sad. Literally no warning.

And yes - we usually associate landslides in Japan with heavy rain.

As written, perhaps the hillside moved after the big quakes of 2016 and the big Shimane quake of last week further loosened the substrata. Many places last week registered from 1 - 3 magnitude in that area.

What a terrifying and terrible thing. I do hope that they find them alive - fingers crossed.

Cedar - are they the trees with a shallow root system?