User talk:Texraider

This Day in History

On this day in 1962, an avalanche on the slopes of an extinct volcano killed more than 4,000 people in Peru. Nine towns and seven smaller villages were destroyed. On the evening of January 10, as most of the region’s people gathered in their homes for dinner, the edge of a giant glacier suddenly broke apart and thundered down the mountain. The block of ice was the size of two skyscrapers and weighed approximately 6 million tons, and it made a loud noise as it fell, which was heard in the towns below.

As avalanches were not unusual in the area, it was usually a 20 to 30 minute gap between the sound of the ice cracking off and an avalanche, which gave people time to seek higher ground. However, this time, the avalanche traveled nine-and-a-half miles in only seven minutes, wiping away several communities. The towns of Ranrahirca and Huarascucho were buried under 40 feet of ice, mud, trees, boulders and other debris. Only a handful of people in each town survived. The avalanche finally ended at the Santa River, where it stopped the water flow, causing flooding in nearby areas.

Overall, approximately 4,000 people lost their lives in the avalanche. An additional 10,000 farm animals were killed and millions of dollars in crops were destroyed.

Eight years later, an earthquake set off another terrible avalanche in the same area