AVALANCHE One of most fearful aspects of, living in a mountainous section of the world is the avalanche. One finds it difficult to comprehend that which we have always considered to be firm, steady and unmoved - the very Earth we stand upon - becomes a flowing, movable, crushing monster in movement and beyond our control. Few people survive when an avalanche strikes.
Man, himself, has managed to develop tediousness's devices which can make living a fearful time for all, but Mother Nature retains the title for having the most insidious. The avalanche is among her worst.
I read about, and remember such disasters and those which took place in Peru 1996 and 1970 prove to be of special interest in several ways. Both originated at a place called :”Nevados de Huascaran” , Andes Mountains, Peru, South America. Hugh slab of granite rock, debris of all kinds and glacial ice fell suddenly without any apparent triggering mechanism.
You may have noticed that geologists of our time use the name “Mass Wasting Events”, when speaking of “landslides” and it applies aptly to the two Peruvian examples. On January 10, 1962 a huge slab of granite and glacial ice fell, with no apparent triggering. It all moved into the valley below and destroyed the town of Ranrahirca, killing its four thousand inhabitants. Peruvian air force planes flew supplies into the area and dropped to victims who managed to evade the erratic sic path of the killer wave. Some fifty people are said to have survived in the entire area.
Then, on, May 3l, 1970 a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the same mountain peak and shook it for forty-five seconds. A mass of granite
crashed down the mountainside on the town of five hundred people who had re-established as a small community there. All were killed and their village erased forever. The new avalanche, said to have been the largest South America has ever known roared down the canyon-like gorges of the wildly torn valley and,this time it did not stop at the hill which the previous one had found to be a barrier. Instead, it took the slope as a jump-off spot and hydroplaned into the air as house-sized blocks to fall on the houses on some eighteen thousand residents of the town of Youngay, with little, if any, warning and no hope of being able to out run the oncoming wall of death.
The speed at the original fall was estimated too have been over three hundred m.p.h. and the churning walls must have averaged sixty-five m.p.h. for the rest of the trip roaring down the crooked, narrow gorges of the Valley, jumping over the side walls at times.
There is much wisdom in calling avalanches by the new name. They are, indeed, “Mass Wasting Events”.
A.L.M. August 7, 2005 [c477wds]
