AI Insight
In August 2026, 60 fatal landslides were recorded globally, resulting in 7,365 fatalities, continuing an above-average trend for the year. The exceptionally high death toll was primarily driven by a single catastrophic landslide on August 26, 2026, on the flanks of Langtung Lirung that triggered devastating debris flows across Nepal and Tibet. Through the end of August, the cumulative number of fatal landslides in 2026 tracked closely behind 2024, which was an exceptional year for such events.
Why it matters
This data reveals concerning patterns in global landslide hazards and enables researchers and policymakers to identify high-risk periods and regions for improved disaster preparedness and risk mitigation strategies. The concentration of fatalities in single catastrophic events underscores the critical need for early warning systems in mountainous regions vulnerable to landslides and debris flows.
Understand the Science
In August 2026 I recorded 60 fatal landslides causing 7,365 fatalities. This year continues to show a higher than average trend in fatal landslide occurrence.
This is my regular update for the number of fatal global landslides, focusing on August 2026. As usual, this data has been collected in line with the methodology described in Froude and Petley (2018) and in Petley (2012). References are listed below – please cite these articles if you use this analysis. Data presented in these updates should be treated as being provisional at this stage as I will reanalyse them prior to formal publication, and other events will emerge.
Note that this data excludes landslides triggered by earthquakes.
The headline figures are as follows:
August 2026: 60 fatal landslides causing 7365 fatalities.
This is the number of landslides by month in 2026 to the end of August:-
So, after an exceptional July, August proved to be a bit calmer in terms of the number of fatal landslides, but this is still above the long term mean. The number of fatalities is absolutely exceptional of course, which is very unusually high, reflecting the enormous number of casualties from the 26 August 2026 landslide on the flanks of Langtung Lirung, and the subsequent debris flow that devastated swathes of Nepal and Tibet.
My preferred way of presenting this data us to use the cumulative total by pentad. This graph is to pentad 48, which captures almost all of the August data (to 28 August):-
As the data shows, at this point 2026 continued to run only just behind the exceptional year of 2024 in terms of the total number of fatal landslides. Note though the apparent slowing in the trend towards the end of the month, which may reflect the dynamics of the South Asian monsoon.
References
Froude, M. and Petley, D.N. 2018. Global fatal landslide occurrence from 2004 to 2016. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 18, 2161-2181.
Petley, D.N. 2012. Global patterns of loss of life from landslides. Geology 40 (10), 927-930.
Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.
Source: Fatal landslides in August 2026