Reconnaissance of the July 10, 2000, Payatas Landfill Failure
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 19, Issue 2
Abstract
Following ten days of extremely heavy rains from two typhoons, a fast moving slope failure of municipal solid waste was triggered at the Payatas Landfill, Quezon City, Philippines. The wasteslide buried more than 330 persons. Only 58 persons were rescued while, after weeks of recovery efforts, 278 bodies were recovered. This paper documents the events and circumstances that led to the failure. Beyond stating the known facts leading up to the failure, only a brief discussion of the suspected reasons for the failure is presented in this paper.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The reconnaissance efforts were completed through funding by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0092700. The writers would like to thank Dr. Victor Pulmano and Dr. Mark Zarco of the University of the Philippines, Diliman for their help in making contacts at the Payatas Landfill and in performing the interview, and Mr. Per Olof Seman of SWECO International for providing the 1992 VBB VIAK report. Finally, the writers would like to thank the wonderful people of Payatas for their openness in providing interviews about their terrible experience.
References
Bacalzo, S. J. (2001). “Garbage still being dumped at Payatas.” Balik Kalikasan (Tagalog, Return to Nature, 6(2), ⟨http://www.bwf.org/bk/2001/02/ṉ03.html (Feb. 1, 2005).⟩
Fritz, W. U. (2003). “The effect of gas on pore pressures in wet landfills.” PhD dissertation, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson.
GeoSyntec Consultants. (1998). “Investigation of the causes of 27 September 1997 Zone II slope failure, Dona Juana Sanitary Landfill, Santafe de Bogota, Columbia, South America.” Technical Report prepared for ProSantana Ltda., GeoSyntec Consultants, Chicago.
Kavazanjian, E. K., Jr. (2001). “Mechanical properties of municipal solid waste.” Proc., Sardinia 2001, 8th Int. Waste Management and Landfilling Symposium, Sardinia, Italy, Vol. 3, 415–424.
Marinay, M. B., and Andrade, J. (2000). “30 dead in QC dump collapse.” The Manila Times, July 11.
Merry, S. M., Fritz, W. U., and Budhu, M. (2005). “The effect of gas on pore pressures in wet landfills.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., in press.
Pulley, R. V. (2003). “Down in the dumps and rising from it!.” in newsletter, City Development Strategies Executive Association ⟨www.cdsea.org/Archives/Kcontrib/dowṉdumps.htm (Feb. 1, 2005).⟩
Schroeder, P. R. et al. (1994). “The hydrologic evaluation of landfill (HELP) model—Engineering documentation for Version 3.” EPA/600/9-94/168b, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory, Cincinnati.
Sison, M. N. (2001). “Firm linked to Estrada got Metro Manila garbage contract.” in report, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, January 24–25, ⟨www.pcij.org/stories/2001/garbage.html (Feb. 1, 2005).⟩
Seman, P. O., and Rydergren, A. (1992). “Payatas sanitary landfill, final design report.” VBB VIAK Engineers, Stockholm, Sweden.
Spencer, E. (1967). “A method of analysis of the stability of embankments assuming parallel interslice forces.” Geotechnique, 17(1), 11–26.
Wright, S. G. (1996). “UTEXASED–Software for Slope Stability Calculations,” Shinoak Software, Austin, Tex.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 26, 2003
Accepted: Apr 6, 2004
Published online: May 1, 2005
Published in print: May 2005
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.