Because the clay layer is typically covered with topsoil, a location which is vulnerable to a quick clay landslide is usually identifiable only by soil testing, and is rarely obvious to a casual observer. Thus human settlements and transportation links have often been built on or near clay deposits, resulting in a number of notable catastrophes:
* In 1702, a landslide destroyed almost all traces of the medieval town Sarpsborg in the Østfold county in Norway. 15 people and 200 animals were killed.
* On 19 May 1893, a landslide in Verdal, Norway, killed 116 people and destroyed 105 farms. It left a crater several kilometers in diameter.
* The most disastrous such landslide to affect North America occurred in 1908, when a slide into the frozen Du Lièvre River propelled a wave of ice-filled water into Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette, Quebec, causing the loss of 33 lives and the destruction of 12 homes.
* In 1955, a landslide affected part of the downtown of Nicolet, Quebec, causing $10 million in damages.
*In 1957, a large quick-clay landslide occurred in Lilla Edet, by the Göta River, in southwestern Sweden. A large part of a factory slid into the river, causing a thirty meter reduction in the river width. The earth mass coming into the river produced an approximately six meter high wave.
*On March 27, 1964, parts of Anchorage, Alaska built on sandy bluffs overlying "Bootlegger Cove clay" near Cook Inlet, most notably the Turnagain neighborhood, suffered landslide damage during the 1964 Alaska Earthquake. The neighborhood lost 75 houses in the landslide, and the destroyed area has since been turned into Earthquake Park. 
* On 4 May 1971, 31 lives were lost when 40 homes were swallowed in a retrogressive flowslide in Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec, resulting in the relocation of the entire town when the government declared the area uninhabitable due to the presence of Leda clay. The event at Saint-Jean-Vianney contributed to the abandonment of the town of Lemieux, Ontario, in 1991, after a 1989 study showed it was also located on the same type of clay along the South Nation River. In 1993, those findings were borne out when the town's abandoned main street was swallowed by a massive 17-hectare landslide.
* On November 30, 1977, the Tuve landslide in western Sweden killed 9 people and destroyed 67 houses.
* Another famous flow of quick clay at Rissa, Norway, in 1978 caused about 33 hectares (82 acres) of farmland to liquefy and flow into the lake Botn over a few hours, with the loss of one life.  The Rissa slide was well recorded by local citizens and a documentary film was made about it in 1981.
* On 11 May 2010, quick clay took the lives of a family living in Saint-Jude, Quebec, when the land their house was built on suddenly tumbled down toward the Salvail River. The landslide was so sudden that the family members died where they sat; they had been watching an ice hockey game on television. The slide took out a portion of rural road which took a year to reinstate.
* On 2 February 2015, a landslide collapsed a pillar on the Skjeggestad Bridge in South-East Norway. The landslide was caused by nearby earthworks.
* On 3 June 2020, eight buildings were swept into the sea by a landslide in Kråkneset in the Alta municipality in Norway. The landslide was filmed by a resident. There were no casualties, and a dog was rescued from the sea.
* On 30 December 2020, part of a housing area was swept away by a landslide in Ask in the Gjerdrum municipality in Norway, 25 km (15 miles) north-east of the capital Oslo. The 300 m × 700 m (985 ft × 2300 ft) quick clay landslide wrecked several houses and killed 10 people.
*On 23 September 2023, near the town of Stenungsund, Sweden, an area of   was affected by a quick clay landslide, which among other things damaged the E6 motorway between Gothenburg and Oslo.
These landslides are retrogressive, meaning they usually start at water, and progress upwards at slow walking speed, although particularly deep quick clay layers on sloped regions may collapse much more rapidly, or in very large chunks that can slide at great speed due to the liquid nature of the disturbed clay. They have been known to penetrate kilometers inland, and consume everything in their path.
In modern times, areas known to have quick clay deposits are commonly tested in advance of any major human development. It is not always possible to entirely avoid building on a quick clay site, although modern engineering techniques have found technical precautions which can be taken to mitigate the risk of disaster. For example, when Ontario's Highway 416 had to pass through a quick clay deposit near Nepean, lighter fill materials such as polystyrene were used for the road bed, vertical wick drains were inserted along the route and groundwater cutoff walls were built under the highway to limit water infiltration into the clay.