Fatal landslides in Colombia (from historical times to 2020) and their socio-economic impacts

Landslides typify one of the most hazardous natural phenomena fostering economic and even human losses worldwide. Several countries like Colombia, in South America, are hotspots for fatal landslides. In this contribution, we thoroughly reviewed four available databases, articles, grey literature and web resources, in order to build up a new catalogue of fatal landslides in Colombia. We gathered a catalogue of 2351 individual fatal landslides which caused about 37,959 deaths. Of these, we found 11 fatal events in historical times (pre-twentieth century). In modern times (1912-2020), we analysed landslides' spatial and temporal distribution, finding that in central-western Colombia, particularly in the departments of Caldas, Risaralda, Quindio and Antioquia, these kinds of events are more frequent. Upward trends in these areas and a nationwide increase in the number of events in the last 20 years suggest that fatal landslides are far from being effectively mitigated. Our findings also show a strong correlation between the climate variability phenomenon known as El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and fatal landslides, particularly during those years when strong La Nina (cold phase of ENSO) events occur. Despite rainfall being the most common trigger for fatal landslides, we observed an increasing trend in anthropogenically related events in the last decade. Finally, we obtained multiple socio-economic indices and ran a statistical analysis at the departmental level in order to assess whether impoverished and vulnerable people are more affected by fatal landslides. We propose that in most cases, departments with low income, high levels of corruption and inequality are usually more affected.

Automated summary

Landslides are a major threat in countries like Colombia, especially in central-western regions. The study found a strong correlation between landslides and the climate variability phenomenon known as El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as well as an increasing trend in anthropogenically related events.