Landslide, the sudden and rapid down hill movement of soil along the hill slope is another dimension

of slope instability.
It now becomes a common environmental hazard all over the world. The rate of landslide is increasing day by day.
Landslide being a natural hazard occurs either due to increase of load on its head or decrease of support in its toe. The
nature of slope and the geomorphic processes induce landslides, but it became more hazardous as soon as the
settlement process started on the hills. The landslide in the recent years was primarily man induced, the slopes of the
hills of Guwahati in Assam are naturally prone to landslides for its structural peculiarities and prevailing climate of the
region. The hills of the Guwahati city is coated with a thick layer of immature soil with low permeability which naturally
became more landslide prone during rainy season. Growth of population and construction of houses on the steep slope
zones and innumerable roads and footpaths caused removal of support at the toe of steeper part further deteriorate the
situation.
The frequency of landslides increases with the increase of settlement. Unauthorised rapid growth of settlement on the hills is said to be the root cause of most of the landslides.

Earthquakes in India are caused by the collision of the Indian Plate with the Eurasian Plate in the north. Every year the Indian Plate moves roughly 5 centimeters northward, pushing under the
Eurasian Plate and forming the Himalayas and other great mountain chains in the northern part of the Indian peninsula. For great earthquakes the movement can be several meters and can covers
several hundreds of square kilometers of the contact surface between the two plates. Most earthquakes in the northern part of the Indian Sub-continent are a result of this complex process.
Earthquakes which occur at the margins of plates (or plate boundaries) are known as inter-plate earthquakes and account for 95% of the global seismic activity annually.
The North-eastern region of India is an earthquake prone area. The region has experienced a large number of earthquakes of tectonic origin. The risk probabilities of earthquake are less over the
entire Brahmaputra valley. The region of Northeast India is seismically very active. Two major earthquakes of magnitude 8.7 occurred in 1897 and magnitude 8.6 in 1950 causing large scale damage
of lives and properties in this region. Sir Edward Gait (1933) has mentioned about the occurrence of destructive earthquakes in this region in 1548, 1596, 1607, 1642, 1663, 1696-1714, 1869,
1882,
and
in
1897.
In
the
present
century,
destructive
earthquakes
occurred
in
1918,
1923,
1930,
1932,
1938,
1943,
1947,
1950
and
in
1988.
Much of Assam lies in the Brahmaputra River Valley, except for a few southern districts. The northern and eastern parts of this valley are bounded by the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFF). In the
eastern parts along with the HFF, there is the Lohit and Naga Thrusts. Among the large earthquakes in this region were the events in 1869 and 1897. The 1897 earthquake is well known for the
dramatic accounts of violent upthrow during the shock