The brown scars of landslides merge above Río Paez.
Nearly all of the landslides orginated on slopes of
>30°. Most began as shallow slips in water-saturated
soil and liquefied immediately; heavy rains before the
earthquake had saturated the steep hillsides. The slides
typically were about 1-2 m thick. Near the earthquake
epicenter, the landslides removed >50% of the vegetation.
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