According to continuity equation and momentum equation of compressible fluid, the study of landslide - generated waves in this paper was carried out by the derivation of the governing equations of landslide - generated waves and the establishment of numerical model of vertical two - dimensional landslide -generated waves. The numerical model was established with irregular body - fitted mesh finite volume method and explicit MacCormack predictor - corrector method for solving these equations. The study result is verified by correlative data of Xintan landslides. It indicates that the result of the numerical model is in good agreement with the measured data.