Landslides triggered by the 1970 Ms 7.7 Tonghai earthquake in Yunnan, China: an inventory, distribution characteristics, and tectonic significance

The 1970 Tonghai earthquake, which occurred on January 5, 1970, in Tonghai County, Yunnan Province, China, triggered a large number of landslides. Since the occurrence of the earthquake, there have been a huge number of research reports on the seismogenic structure and earthquake mechanism, but rare reports on the seismic landslides. As the largest earthquake recorded in the Qujiang fault zone, the study on the coseismic landslides triggered by this earthquake are of great significance to the prevention and mitigation of earthquake-induced landslides in this region. In this study, we established a coseismic landslide inventory for the VIII-X seismic intensity areas of the Ms 7.7 Tonghai earthquake, and conducted spatial analysis on the coseismic landslides, mainly having analyzed the effect of the topographic factors, geological factors, and seismic factors on the development of the coseismic landslides. To enhance the understanding of this earthquake, we converted the earthquake epicenter and magnitude with empirical formulas based on the distributions and areas of the coseismic landslides. Comparing with coseismic landslides in other earthquake-hit areas, we found the capability that this earthquake could induce landslides is low. This study provides a useful supplement to the global coseismic landslide inventories and could be the basic data for seismic landslide assessment in this earthquake-prone region.