Portland Oregon February 1996 a mountain
begins to move and for a contractor and
his son there’s only one option get out
of the way fast
car
Oh God they had just gone head-to-head
with one of nature’s most powerful and
destructive forces a landslide the
surface of our planet is constantly
reshaping itself and landslides are a
major reason they strike wherever the
soil is loosened by rain or tugged by
gravity it can be a rock fall or a
raging river of mud but wherever the
ground fails it can result in massive
destruction on average landslides kill
more than 8,000 people every year around
the world they can crash down without
warning and travel for several miles in
the u.s. landslides occur in all 50
states but some places are more
dangerous than others landslides usually
follow other natural disasters like
volcanic eruptions earthquakes wildfires
storms and floods steep slopes are
obvious places for landslides as our
areas that have been hit by landslides
before but they also frequently occur
where people have radically altered the
landscape Hills stripped of vegetation
slopes modified for roads and buildings
and as our cities and towns expand
further landslides become more frequent
and more destructive
in 1998 disaster struck the Southern
California suburb of Laguna Niguel few
realized that the man-made hill beneath
them could fail the ground eroded by
heavy rains began to give way and the
houses came crashing down seven were
seriously damaged and five of them
tumbled down the cliff face though the
ground cracked and the earth plummeted
no one was injured
the residents of Laguna Niguel were
lucky they still had their town the
following year in Venezuela torrential
rains triggered widespread landslides
across a twenty five mile wide strip of
coastline in the state of Vargas
communities were buried under waves of
mud and debris
it’s estimated that 30,000 people were
killed around ten percent of the area’s
population accurate death tolls were
difficult to establish because so many
people vanished under the mud or were
swept out to sea though the catastrophe
was on a massive scale it is by no means
unique such disasters have happened
before and will happen again as long as
the earth continues to move people will
live with the threat of landslides
begins to move and for a contractor and
his son there’s only one option get out
of the way fast
car
Oh God they had just gone head-to-head
with one of nature’s most powerful and
destructive forces a landslide the
surface of our planet is constantly
reshaping itself and landslides are a
major reason they strike wherever the
soil is loosened by rain or tugged by
gravity it can be a rock fall or a
raging river of mud but wherever the
ground fails it can result in massive
destruction on average landslides kill
more than 8,000 people every year around
the world they can crash down without
warning and travel for several miles in
the u.s. landslides occur in all 50
states but some places are more
dangerous than others landslides usually
follow other natural disasters like
volcanic eruptions earthquakes wildfires
storms and floods steep slopes are
obvious places for landslides as our
areas that have been hit by landslides
before but they also frequently occur
where people have radically altered the
landscape Hills stripped of vegetation
slopes modified for roads and buildings
and as our cities and towns expand
further landslides become more frequent
and more destructive
in 1998 disaster struck the Southern
California suburb of Laguna Niguel few
realized that the man-made hill beneath
them could fail the ground eroded by
heavy rains began to give way and the
houses came crashing down seven were
seriously damaged and five of them
tumbled down the cliff face though the
ground cracked and the earth plummeted
no one was injured
the residents of Laguna Niguel were
lucky they still had their town the
following year in Venezuela torrential
rains triggered widespread landslides
across a twenty five mile wide strip of
coastline in the state of Vargas
communities were buried under waves of
mud and debris
it’s estimated that 30,000 people were
killed around ten percent of the area’s
population accurate death tolls were
difficult to establish because so many
people vanished under the mud or were
swept out to sea though the catastrophe
was on a massive scale it is by no means
unique such disasters have happened
before and will happen again as long as
the earth continues to move people will
live with the threat of landslides
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