A catastrophic debris flow event which occurred on August 7, 2010, in Zhouqu County, Gansu Province, China, killed 1364 people and a further 401 people listed as missing. Landslides (including soil slides, debris slides, debris flows, etc.) triggered by rainfall tend highly to occur almost every year in nearly all hilly and mountainous regions of China and constitute a major hazard that can cause serious loss of life. Conscious of the need to minimize casualties from future landslide events, the government departments and landslide scientists should focus on prelandslide hazard event instead of postlandslide hazard event. Increasing preparedness through a realtime landslide forecasting system is one of the most effective ways to reduce the damage impact of the landslide hazards to life. We think it is possible to identify landslide susceptibility areas in the hilly and mountainous regions of China at a horizontal resolution of 1×1km grid cell using available techniques and data. And then the realtime forecasting system for evaluating the spatiotemporal probability of occurrence of rainfalltriggered landslides can be established, which uses the regional 24hour forecast rainfall information and the realtime rainfall monitoring data from the raingauge network as its inputs, and provides 1~24hour forecast of the landslide probability for every 1×1km grid cell in the hilly and mountainous regions. Public education on how to respond to landslide warnings and safe means of evacuation are also as important as the establishment of a prediction and warning system.