Mudflows are formed in mountains, deserts, seas and oceans as a result of prolonged heavy rains, intense melting of snow and ice, outburst of moraine-glacial reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, economic activity, etc.
Mudflows occur everywhere where conditions for their formation exist or are created. On the territory of Europe, mudflows are most common within the Alps, in the Scandinavian mountains, the mountainous part of Iceland, the Kola Peninsula, the mountainous regions of Moldova, Ukraine, the Northern, Subpolar and Polar Urals, the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. In Asia, mudflows are widespread in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, Altai, Sayan Mountains, the Baikal region, the Far East and Primorye, Sakhalin and Kamchatka, Western, Southwestern and Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia, on the Hindustan Peninsula and the Japanese Islands.
Mudflow hazardous areas in Kazakhstan include: Kazakhstan Altai, Saur and Tarbagatai ridges, Zhetysu, Ile, Kungei, Teriskei and Talas Alatau, Kyrgyz and Ugam ridges. Cases of passage of mudflows in the mountains of the Mangyshlak Peninsula were noted. Mudflows can also form in other mountainous regions of Kazakhstan, but there are no reliable data on mudflow activity in these areas. As practice shows, mudflows of anthropogenic origin can occur even where they cannot occur under natural conditions. In Kazakhstan, the most mudflow-prone area is the Ile Alatau ridge.
About the nature of the mudflows of the Ile (Zaili) Alatau can be found in the monograph by R.K. Yafyazova “The nature of the mudflows of the Zailiyskiy Alatau. Problems of adaptation”