ABSTRACT
Catastrophic landslides occurred repeatedly on gentle slopes during past earthquakes in Japan causing significant damage to the local environment and posing serious threat to inhabitants’ lives. The January 1995 Nikawa landslide (Hyogo Prefecture), January 1995 Takarazuka landslide (Hyogo Prefecture) or May 2003 Tsukidate landslide (Miyagi Prefecture) are representative examples of such seismically-induced catastrophic slope failures. Typically, the sliding surface of these landslides was comprised of saturated cohesionless materials, and the slope gradient was greater than 10° but not exceeding 20°.
