A massive landslide occurred in Domeshi area, District Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, in two distinct phases: an initial movement on August 1, followed by complete failure on August 4, 2023. The landslide movement persisted for 96 h, with a runout distance of 500 m. The event destroyed numerous residential structures, impacting multiple families, and causing extensive damage to cultivated land and road infrastructure. To comprehensively understand the failure mechanisms, a detailed study was undertaken, encompassing site investigations, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photography, geotechnical and geophysical investigations, petrographic analysis, kinematics, and numerical simulations. The field evidence indicates that the active deformation along the Jhelum Fault (JF) within the landslide's main body weakened the surrounding rock formations. Intense rainfall saturated pre-existing fractures, creating critical zones of weakness. Highly plastic clays along fault plane contributed significantly to volume changes, especially during and after rainfall events. Kinematic analysis identified bedding joints as prevalent failure planes for planar sliding. Geophysical survey revealed a layer of unconsolidated material extending 25-30 m below the landslide's scarp, accompanied by various fractures, including a deep fracture (i.e., JF) up to 300 m depth. Petrographic investigations showed microfractures, micro faults, and intragranular mineral breakage, indicative of intense tectonic stresses. Slope stability analysis indicated factors of safety (FoS) and strength reduction factor (SRF) less than 1, suggesting the potential for further failure in the lower sections of the landslide. Multiple factors, including slope geometry, active tectonics, material composition, and anthropogenic factors (i.e., slope loading and cutting for road and building construction, improper drainage distribution), contributed to the landslide's occurrence, however, the rainfall emerged as the primary triggering event.

Absorbing aerosols mainly Black Carbon (BC) have potential effects on the hydrological cycle and climate change over the high-altitude regions particularly in South Asia. The BC measurements are sparse in high altitude locations of the world particularly over the Northern regions of Pakistan. This study investigated the diurnal/monthly variations of BC and its climatic impacts during the period of 2016-2017 over four high altitude locations, i.e., Astore, Gilgit, Sost and Skardu located in the Himalaya-Karakorum-Hindukush (HKH) mountain ranges in Northern Pakistan. The Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds (OPAC) model was used for the estimation of aerosol optical properties, e.g., Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), Asymmetry Parameter (AP) and Single Scattering Albedo (SSA) using the BC number density corresponding to the BC mass concentration. Then the model derived optical properties (AOD, AP and SSA), surface reflectance, ozone and water vapor were used in Santa Barbara DISORT Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SBDART) model for the calculation of BC aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) at the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA), Surface (SUR) and within the ATMosphere (ATM). The results revealed that the mean monthly BC concentrations were maximum during November (3.05 +/- 0.7 mu g/m(3)) as well as in December (3.05 +/- 0.5 mu g/m(3)) at Gilgit and minimum during August (1.1 +/- 0.3 mu g/m(3)) at Sost. Correspondingly, the diurnal variation of BC concentrations displayed strong fluctuations, with high concentrations in the late night and early morning during November and December for Astore and Gilgit, respectively. Generally, the BC concentrations were maximum/minimum in the morning/evening during May, June, August and September at all locations. The correlation of BC with different meteorological parameters showed that the BC has positive correlation with temperature and wind speed, while negative with relative humidity and rainfall. The HYSPLIT back trajectory analysis revealed that air masses arrived the study locations from both long distance (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and China) and local sources. The monthly mean maximum and minimum BC ARF values at SUR (TOA) were found to be 43.7 +/- 3.0 W/m(2) (8.2 +/- 0.2 W/m(2)) and 16.4 +/- 1.0 W/m(2) (1.2 +/- 0.1 W/m(2)), respectively, giving an averaged atmospheric forcing of 35.7 +/- 2.3 W/m(2) and 15.2 +/- 1.9 W/m(2).