Venezuela Mudslides 1999In 1999 a small state in Venezuela called Vargas experienced some of the worst mudslides on record. But why did this happen and what effects did it have on the people, and places of Vargas, Venzuela?
To have a mudslide you need 3 ingredients. 1. saturated soil/ground 2. a hill and finally, 3. rain. lots of rain. when the rain pentrates the soil, the soil eventually becomes saturated. if the rain coninues after this, this is when land/mudslides and floods can occur. the water hitting the soil on a hill means that the soil becomes heavier. This can cause the soil to start to fall down the hill into anything at the base of the hill, which could be anything from a lake to a town. mudslides are ruthless. They stop for nothing. in 1999, Venezuela, the town of Los Corales was hammered by an unstopable force of mud, traveling at 54 kph. The mudslides killed an estimated 10,000 people and destroyed 1000 homes. It buried the town of Los Corales in mud, 3 metres deep. Some areas of Vargas still havnt recoved from an event that has been tagged as the "Vargas Tragedy" which happened almost 15 years ago. |
|