Large-scale landslides near restricted water bodies, such as lakes, dammed reservoirs, and mountain rivers, may generate huge surge waves that in turn cause casualties and building damage. For example, a catastrophic rockslide, with a large volume of approximately 3 × 10 8 m 3 , slipped and fell into the Vajont reservoir in Italy in 1963. The resultant surge wave overtopped the Vajont dam causing the death of nearly two thousand people (Panizzo et al., 2005). This type of disaster chain involves complex multi-physical and multiscale problems, including landslide deformation, free-surface capture, multiphase coupling, and strong three-dimensional (3D) structural evolution.Numerous experimental studies have been conducted using indoor water channels. Generally, according to the type of sliding mass, these studies can be divided into two categories such as rigid-body models (Ataie-Ashtiani