1970 Huascarán debris avalanche at Yungay

An earthquake struck Peru's Ancash region at exactly 3:23 p.m. on 31 May 1970, breaking a large mass of glacier and rock loose from the summit of Mount Huascarán. The wave of ice, rock and mud travelled toward Yungay at speeds exceeding 180 miles per hour and buried the town under an estimated 50 to 100 million cubic metres of debris, covering homes, sports stadiums and churches. Studies and survivor accounts hold that only about 400 residents of Yungay escaped, among them 92 people who were at the cemetery on a small artificial hill above the town.

Date
1970-05-31
Deaths (Wikipedia list, low end where it gives a range)
22000
What the pin marks
Yungay, the town the avalanche buried, as the cited page positions it, not the mountain it fell from.
Where the position is published
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungay,_Peru

Category: Disasters & Incidents

Tags: debris avalanche, peru, earthquake-triggered, huascaran, yungay

Coordinates: -9.13944, -77.745

Part of Landslides and mudflows that killed 200 or more people since 1950

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