Engineering Geology 74 (2004) 157 – 161
www.elsevier.com/locate/enggeo
Book review
The 1993 landslide dam at La Josefina in Southern
Ecuador: a review of Sin Plazo Para La Esperanza
The catastrophic failure of a mountainside on the
night of March 29, 1993 moved 20106 m3 of rock
debris into the valley floor, blocking the flow of the
Paute River in southern highland Ecuador. This mass
movement, one of the largest to occur in an inhabited
region in recent centuries, profoundly affected the
hydrology and sediment load of the Amazon-draining
Paute River, as well as the population, infrastructure,
and economic development in the 5186-km2 drainage
basin above the hydroelectric dam at Amaluza. Offi-
cially, at least 35 persons lost their lives (unofficial
publications report 72– 350), 5631 were evacuated,
and over half a million were directly affected. Material
damages were estimated at $147 million US dollars.
As a human tragedy, a major disaster, and a continu-
ing threat, the Josefina landslide was front-page news
in Ecuador during the 33 days that passed between the
occurrence of the landslide and the successful breach
of the landslide dam. This set of catastrophic events
remained a major story for several years in Ecuador,
but received only minimal coverage by the interna-
tional press or the scientific community outside of
Ecuador.
The magnitude of the landslide and resulting
dam at La Josefina merits the level of international
attention given to such ‘‘classic’’ mass movements
as the Gros Ventre landslide in Wyoming, USA and
the 1963 Vaiont reservoir landslide in Italy. English-
language readers may have noted short summaries
of the La Josefina events by Plaza-Nieto and
Zevallos (1994) and Canuti et al. (1994), a paper
presented to the International Association of Engi-
neering Geologists (Sevilla, 1994), or a sedimenta-
tion study by this author (Harden, 2001). The most
comprehensive and authoritative scientific coverage
of the landslide, landslide dam, and disaster re-
sponse is now available in the book, Sin Plazo
doi:10.1016/j.enggeo.2004.03.001
Para la Esperanza1, reviewed here to bring this
volume and the event it chronicles to the broader
attention of a global readership.
Sin Plazo Para la Esperanza (‘‘Without Basis for
Hope’’) is a well-edited volume of papers (in Spanish)
first presented during a conference at the Escuela
Politécnica Nacional in Quito, Ecuador, in July
1993, less than 3 months after the engineered breach
of the landslide dam. Contributing authors are geolo-
gists, engineers, hydrologists, civil defense specialists,
and others who were on the ‘‘front lines’’ during this
period. Their contributions establish pre-disaster geo-
graphic, geologic, and socioeconomic contexts, de-
scribe and analyze the landslide and flood events,
chronicle and reflect on efforts of the scientific/
engineering community and emergency management
organizations during the 33-day impoundment,
and discuss the post-disaster reconstruction process.
Between the original presentation in 1993 and the
publication of this book in 1996, authors revised their
papers to incorporate additional perspectives gained in
the first years after the events and to eliminate
repetition between papers.
The first section of the book (‘‘Before’’) provides
background information on the geography, geology,
and socioeconomic status of the region, and also on
the status of disaster management in Ecuador before
the time of this set of landmark events. The second
and longest part (‘‘During’’) presents and discusses
aspects of the landslide/dam crisis ranging from
geotechnical considerations to emergency response,
and provides perspectives on politics, communica-
tions, environmental impacts, health, and socioeco-
nomic issues. The final portion (‘‘After’’) examines
1
Othón Zevallos, Marı́a Augusta Fernández, Galo Plaza-Nieto,
Susana Klinkicht, editors, Sin Plazo Para la Esperanza: Reporte
sobre el desastre de La Josefina – Ecuador, 1993. Published in 1996
by Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador. [Available in late
2003 from Libreria, Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Casilla 1701 –
2759, Quito Ecuador, for U.S. $20 (includes shipping)].
158
the roles of government and church in reconstruction,
as well as efforts to prevent disaster in future high
magnitude natural events, and views of the future in
the region.
This well-illustrated, well-organized volume was
compiled and edited by a team of four of the 1993
conference participants and offered as a contribution
from Ecuador to the U.N. Decade for Natural Disaster
Reduction. Although international specialists were
consulted and some assisted with modeling efforts,
the bulk of the analyses were conducted by Ecuador-
ians. The excellent professional capacity of the Ecua-
dorian scientists, particularly in the geotechnical
portions of the book, is evident in the level of detail
and quality of analysis presented in this volume. Some
of the scientists had gained valuable experience from a
similar event on the Pisque River in northern Ecuador
in 1990.
The landslide occurred along the north side of the
eastward-flowing Paute River, 22 km downstream
from the city of Cuenca, as it traversed a narrow
canyon (Fig. 1). The landslide was 1500 m wide and
600 m long, on a slope of 25 –45j. Landslide debris
filled and blocked the Paute River for 1.1 km of its
length, and also impounded a tributary, the Jadán
Fig. 1. The location of the landslide and landslide dam at La Josefina, in the Ecuadorian Andes. Shading along the rivers represents areas
inundated by the 1993 landslide dam.
Book review
River, which enters from the south (Fig 2). The
impounded lake on the Paute River grew to 10 km
in length and 1.91108 m3 in volume before water
flowing through a channel excavated across the sur-
face of the landslide deposit caused the dam to rupture
on May 1, 1993. Prior to the rupture, impounded
water, 100 m deep at the landslide dam, covered a
major road between provinces and flooded the Pan-
american highway, homes, agricultural fields, and
industrial sites. People living in parts of three prov-
inces became isolated when their transportation links
were flooded or washed away.
Informative papers by Egüez and Plaza-Nieto in
Sin Plazo Para la Esperanza present and analyze
geological and geotechnical details of the landslide
at La Josefina. The landslide occurred on a rainy
night, following above-normal seasonal rain. It reac-
tivated highly weathered and fractured intrusive rocks
(microdiorites, andesites) at the site of an ancient
landslide. The landslide was caused by a combination
of factors, including wet conditions, steep slopes,
instability of intensely fractured rock with silty-clay
interstitial fill, and a history of mining to remove
fractured microdiorite from the toe of the slope.
Seismic records show no earthquake activity associ-
 Book review 159

Fig. 2. The landslide scar and dam in 1994, 1 year after the dam was ruptured. The photograph was taken from near the top of the slide, looking
southward; the flow of the Paute River is from right (west) to left (east). Numbered features are (1) deposits from the March 29, 1993 landslide,
(2) channel excavated to release impounded water, (3) a post-rupture slope failure at Zhizhio, and (4) remnant lakes a year after the dam rupture
(photo by author, June 1994).

ated with the landslide. Particle size analyses of the
upper 20 m of the landslide deposit initially showed a
predominantly (70%) fine matrix with weathered
blocks up to 1 – 2 m in diameter. Lower deposits,
exposed after the dam break, revealed a higher pro-
portion of blocks >1 m diameter, and a lower propor-
tion (25% – 40%) of fine matrix. The variability of
particle characteristics posed a challenge to those
modeling the event.
Scientists and engineers recognized the need to
artificially rupture the landslide dam as soon as
possible to reduce the potential for flood damage
downstream. The inhabited valley downstream from
the impoundment contains towns, agricultural lands, a
highway linking an entire province to the rest of the
country, and a hydroelectric power plant (HidroPaute)
that generates 60– 70% of the electric power con-
sumed by the country of Ecuador.
Therefore, rupturing the dam was a high-risk
action, the consequences of which needed to be
modeled and predicted before technical decisions
were made. Three teams of modelers used numerical
models, including BREACH and DMBRK (Fread,
1984), and HIDRO1 (Zevallos, 1990); and two teams
used physical models, one at a scale of 1:200 and one
at 1:150. The paper ‘‘Rotura de la Presa’’ (Rupture of
the dam) by Zevallos in this volume provides excel-
lent coverage of the assumptions and model inputs
used by the different modeling groups, the limitations
of the models, and model outputs. Model-derived
estimates of maximum discharge at rupture, based
on a range of inputs representing optimistic to pessi-
mistic scenarios, varied between 7100 and 16,500 m3/
s. The two physical models predicted maximum flood
discharge at 8000 m3/s, and 8000– 16,000 m3/s. The
landslide dam did not rupture within the first 24 –48
h of the initial passage of water through the excavated
channel, as predicted by the models, but rather 6 days
later. Zevallos reports actual maximum discharge to
have been 9500 m3/s at the landslide dam (however,
estimates vary). At the Amaluza reservoir, 52 km
downstream, actual maximum discharge was reported
to have been 9300 m3/s, compared to predicted values
for that location that ranged from 5500 to 12,000 m3/
s. Both of the independent, physical models were able
to be implemented in a very short time, and performed
very well.
The flood wave dramatically scoured the river
channel (Fig. 3), triggered about 100 small landslides
along the channel margin, and washed away five
bridges; however, it did not cause further loss of life
or destroy the HidroPaute dam. In their paper on
effects of the flood in the Paute channel and the
Amaluza reservoir, Zevallos and Jerves calculate that
160
Fig. 3. This view of the Paute River was taken in June 1994, by the author, facing upstream at a site about 5 km downstream from the ruptured
landslide dam. The river valley bottom eroded during the dam break flood, and filled with sediment as the flood receded.
a total of 12.3 million m3 of sediment were moved by
the flood, of which 4.3 million originated from the
landslide deposit at La Josefina and 8 million were
from valley-side landslides and channel erosion.
Based on bathymetric data, they report a sediment
influx of 1.22 Hm3 into the Amaluza reservoir, over
50 km downstream from La Josefina, as a direct result
of the landslide dam rupture. At the foot of the
landslide deposit at La Josefina, post-rupture channel
bed deposits are characteristically composed of bould-
ers to gravel, while 9 km downstream, the deposits are
of sand and gravel. Effects of the landslide dam-break
flood extended below the HidroPaute dam, where
high flood discharges (up to 4400 m3/s) eroded the
narrow valley.
Chapters of Sin Plazo Para la Esperanza covering
topics of emergency management offer a retrospective
view with valuable suggestions based on lessons
learned at La Josefina. Although the emergency
response was immediate, independent actions of dif-
ferent groups created problems of coordination. Radio
was the most important medium of communication
locally, although written media and television were
important in the rest of the country. Detailed descrip-
tions given in this volume, including an appendicized
list of reconstruction expenses, a time-line integrating
physical events with key responses (e.g., change to
Book review
‘‘red’’ alert downstream), and a table listing items
received as international aid, should provide a very
helpful practical reference for persons and agencies
responding to future disasters.
Since the publication of Sin Plazo Para la Esper-
anza, roads and bridges, new housing, and a sewage
treatment system for the city of Cuenca (population
approximately 200,000) have been built. Irrigation
canals and potable water systems have been repaired
and improved, and a sense of normalcy and positive
economic development has returned. The Paute River,
however, has only begun to adjust to the changes it
experienced in 1993. Abril (2001) reports an enor-
mous potential for further erosion, as the river down-
stream from La Josefina seeks a new equilibrium
profile closer to its pre-landslide bed levels. In the
first 9 km below the landslide dam, the river now
flows on a gravelly bed 30 m higher than the pre-
landslide channel bed (Abril 2001). A series of
energy-dissipating structures has been installed in
the Paute River to help stabilize the river and protect
recent investments in infrastructure. Even though a
sense of stability has returned to the region, the
landscape remains dynamic and the river has not
adjusted to its new state. In light of future risks
associated with this and other dynamic environments,
the hard-won and thoughtfully documented details
 Book review
offered in Sin Plazo Para la Esperanza are recom-
mended for readers globally.
References
Abril, J.B., 2001. Master plan for the fluviomorphologic stabili-
zation of the Paute River. University of Birmingham School
of Civil Engineering, lecture for Advanced Study Course on
River Basin Modelling for Flood Risk Mitigation, October,
2002.
Canuti, P., Frassoni, A., Natale, L., 1994. Failure of the Rio
Paute Landslide Dam. Landslide News 8, 6 – 7 (http://japan.
landslide-soc.org/publications/l-news/).
Fread, D., 1984. Dambrk: The NWS Dam-Break Flood forecasting
Model. National Weather Service Office of Hydrology, Silver
Spring, MD, USA.
161
Harden, C.P., 2001. Sediment movement and catastrophic events:
the 1993 rockslide at la Josefina, Ecuador. Physical Geography
22 (4), 305 – 320.
Plaza-Nieto, G., Zevallos, O., 1994. The 1993 La Josefina rockslide
and Rio Paute landslide dam, Ecuador. Landslide News 8, 4 – 6
(http://japan.landslide-soc.org/publications/l-news/).
Sevilla, J., 1994. The Josefina landslide and its implications in the
electrical service for the Republic of Ecuador. In: Proceedings of
the Seventh International Congress, pp. 1801 – 1810 Interna-
tional Association of Engineering Geology, Lisboa, Portugal.
Carol P. Harden
Department of Geography, University of Tennessee,
304 Burchfiel Geography Building,
Knoxville, TN 379960925, USA
E-mail address: charden@utk.edu
Fax: 1+865-974-6025