1999 Venezuelan landslide
Landslides are a widespread and major geologic hazard. Massive slides
can be triggered by heavy rains. Sometimes massive landslides are
triggered by earthquakes, as in the disastrous Yungay, Peru slide
of 1970, or by volcanic eruptions, as in the 1980 eruption of Mount
Saint Helens.
In the middle of December, 1999 approximately 4 meters
of rain fell in just a few days in the Cordillera de la Costa mountains
to the south of the towns of Los Corales and Caraballeda, which
are on the coast north of the city of Caracas. The rains triggered
a series of mud and land slides that claimed the lives of anywhere
from 10,000 to 50,000 people in the narrow strip of land between
the mountains and the Caribbean Sea. Over 150,000 people were left
homeless by landslides and floods in the states of Vargas and Miranda.
This picture was taken a few days after the largest of the catastrophic
slides. Learn
more...
[Photo and text courtesy of the IRIS
PASSCAL Instrument Center]
|
