A device that provides early warning of a landslide by monitoring vibrations in soil is being tested by UK researchers. The gadget could save thousands of lives each year by warning when an area should be evacuated, the scientists say.

Such natural disasters are common in countries that experience sudden, heavy rainfall, and can also be triggered by earthquakes and even water erosion.

Landslides start when a few particles of soil or rock within a slope start to move, but the early stages can be hard to spot. Following this initial movement, "slopes can become unstable in a matter of hours or minutes", Neil Dixon at Loughborough University, UK, told New Scientist. He says a warning system that monitors this movement "might be enough to evacuate a block of flats or clear a road, and save lives."

The most common way to monitor a slope for signs of an imminent landslide is to watch for changes in its shape. Surveyors can do this by measuring a site directly, or sensors sunk into boreholes or fixed above ground can be used to monitor the shape of a slope.

False alarms

Slopes can, however, change shape without triggering a landslide, so either method is prone to causing false alarms. Now Dixon and colleagues have developed a device that listens for the vibrations caused when particles begin moving within a slope.

The device developed by Dixon's team takes the form of a steel pipe dropped into a borehole in a slope. The borehole is filled in with gravel around the pipe to help transmit high-frequency vibrations generated by particles within the slope. These vibrations pass up the tube and picked up by a sensor on the surface. Software analyses the vibration signal to determine whether a landslide may be imminent.

Bad vibrations

The device is currently being tested in a 6-metre-tall artificial clay embankment in Newcastle, UK. Early results suggest it should provide fewer false positives than existing systems. Once it has been rigorously tested, the device could be used to create a complete early-warning system for dangerous slopes.

"Locations with a significant risk of landslides could definitely benefit from a machine like this," says Adam Poulter, a disaster-preparedness expert at the British Red Cross. "As long as is doesn't cost too much."

Many Central American cities with steep slopes and heavy rain are at risk, Poulter says. Landslides triggered by heavy flooding have also killed about 200 people in Indonesia in the past few days.

But, Poulter adds that an early-warning system may not be enough on its own. "You need to have the [human] communication," he says. "Making systems that get warnings to those who need them can be difficult."