ABSTRACT

The case reported concerns one of the largest landslides in Europe, which involved the village of Corniglio (near Parma, in the Northern Apennines. Italy) from late November 1994. The slope movement resumed after unusually high rainfalls, in a pre-existing landslide area which had been quiescent since 1902. The main landslide – about 3000 m long, 1000 m wide at the toe and more than 100 m deep - gradually involved an estimated amount of 200 million m3 of soil. The adjacent old centre of Corniglio started to show evidence of a correlated slope movement with the progressive extension of the main landslide. Immediately after the movements onset, an extensive programme of site investigation, geophysical surveying and careful monitoring was carried out, especially with regards to the old city centre. The interpretation of such a substantial amount of data enabled to provide the geotechnical characterisation of the complex soil formations involved. Preliminary stability analyses on the main landslide reproduced the basic mechanism of progressive failure. As regards the city centre, the additional action from the adjacent slope movement should be taken into account in order to give rise to the instability of the whole slope.