Fourth LACCEI International Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology (LACCET’2006) “Breaking Frontiers and Barriers in Engineering: Education, Research and Practice” 21- 23 June 2006, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. Landslides in Trinidad – A Geotechnical Study Vasudevu Kanithi, Ph. D. Lecturer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, E-mails:
[email protected],
[email protected] Chattergoon Kanhai Chief Engineering Technician, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract The present paper is the geotechnical study of landslides, carried out as a consequence of the news paper reports with photographs during a tropical depression on 15th and 16th of November 2005. Torrential showers caused extensive floods and landslides accounting for some deaths and damage to houses, agricultural land properties, roadways and bridges. Large amount of debris and mud was dumped into the streams contributing to flooding of some rivers. This is a common phenomenon every year during heavy rains in this part. The sites where landslides have been reported recently and also some other places where landslides took place in the earlier years were visited and the geotechnical observations were made. Keywords landslide, mudslide, rainfall, slope failure, disaster Introduction News paper captions like “Villages flooded, hundreds marooned” “Villages under water” and “Blanchisseuse house falling into the sea” (Guardian, 2005) attract the inquisitive mind. In Trinidad, especially in the areas where the investigations were carried out, massive crystalline rocks are not found. The slides occurred either mostly in the talus and highly foliated, jointed and fractured rocks; or in the loose soils.