On 30 September 2009, numerous landslides occurred in a mountain-ringed region of West Sumatra, Indonesia, triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Padang. The landslides blocked roads in the region, hindering efforts to determine the extent of the damage. Analyses of satellite images (coverage area 1,500 km 2) of the most severely damaged districts, Padang Pariaman and Agam, revealed that 253 landslides had occurred. Severe landslides, involving more than 1 million m 3 of collapsed sediment, were observed at 10 sites within the study area.

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A deep-seated rapid (catastrophic) landslide is a phenomenon that may cause serious damage due to the large amount of sediment movement, such as the formation of a landslide dam and debris flows. In Japan, a method for estimating deep-seated rapid (catastrophic) landslide susceptibilities for many small catchments (ca. 1 km 2 ) over relatively large areas (ca. hundreds of km 2 ) was proposed in 2008. In the present study, we applied the Japanese method to the northern part of Jember, East Java, Indonesia, where a debris flow disaster occurred due to the collapse of a landslide dam formed by a deep-seated rapid (catastrophic) landslide in 2004. Although there were several limitations related to data availability, we successfully assessed susceptibility to deep-seated rapid landslides.