Avalanches that killed 50 or more people since 1900

Map of 7 locations · Worldwide

Snow, ice and rock slides from the past century that each took at least fifty lives, set down in the order they happened. Some buried trains or work crews on mountain railways, others came off Andean glaciers onto whole towns, and one followed within minutes of an earthquake. Each entry is pinned where the slide ran, and the figures are those the contemporary reports and later records give. The set follows Wikipedia's list of avalanches by death toll, read and transcribed by hand with avalanches in war left out, so it is a curator's reading of that record rather than a database query.

Places in this collection

  • 2012 Gayari avalanche — An avalanche struck a military base in the Gayari Sector, near the Siachen Glacier region, on 7 April 2012. ARY News reports that 140 soldi…
  • 2002 Kolka-Karmadon rock-ice slide — A firn massif and the body of the Kolka Glacier collapsed in North Ossetia on 20 September 2002 and ran down the Genaldon Ravine, with the…
  • 1993 Üzengili avalanche — A slide struck the village of Üzengili, in the Bayburt province of north-eastern Turkey, on 18 January 1993. TRT Haber reports 59 people ki…
  • 1970 Huascarán debris avalanche — An earthquake struck Peru's Ancash region at 3:23 p.m. local time and broke a large section of glacier and rock from the summit of Mount Hu…
  • 1962 Ranrahirca avalanche — Ice, rock and mud came down the slopes of Huascarán, the extinct volcano that is Peru's highest peak, and buried Ranrahirca and Huarascucho…
  • 1910 Rogers Pass avalanche — A crew was clearing snow from the railway line through Rogers Pass, in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, when the slide came down…
  • 1910 Wellington avalanche — Two Great Northern trains had come west through the Cascade Tunnel and were held near the railway town in King County, Washington, after sn…

Related collections