Every year landslides cause 25 to 50 deaths and $2 billion in damage in the United States. And in December, a single _ killed more than 2000 people in the Philippines. Sending workers to stabilize mountainsides using steel bars can help a lot, but it introduces new difficulties because of dust and loosen heavy, dangerous debris from the work. "It's a quite dangerous job," says Giorgio Pezzuto of D' Appolonia, working with eight other companies. Now there may be an answer: a three-ton robot called Roboclimber. "The idea is to operate a machine far away that can do the stabilizing job without a human being near,"says Pezzuto, manager for the project, which is supported by a European organization. Engineers say that the machine will be faster and cheaper than manual labor. The robot, a large radio-controlled four-legged spider, has cost at least $2 million so far. It should be able to climb mountainsides, drill holes and insert steel bars there. Testing should begin in May. The purpose in writing this text is   _
to tell people how serious the damage caused by landslides is to tell people that sending workers to stabilize mountainsides is a dangerous job to show people how to use a new robot to introduce a new robot that can be used to stabilize mountainsides