Types Of Avalanches And Famous Avalanches

You are on vacation and find a prefect spot for skiing down hill, you start up perfectly and by the time your in the middle of your down hill trip suddenly a huge mass of ice and snow breaks away beneath your skis and the entire skin of mountain of surges down rapidly towing you along everything in its path.

You should find yourself lucky if you survive this because you have just been hit by one of the most aggressive behavior of nature known to man as “Avalanche”.

What Is An Avalanche?

An avalanche is a phenomenon in which the entire layer of snow over a mountain or a slope breaks off naturally or from human triggering with rapid speed down slope. Avalanches are usually composed of flowing snow and are very much different from land slides, rock slides etc.

Avalanches can be classified into many different types according to the composition that is the type of the snow they are made up of the way they slide down etc. Avalanches can be broadly classified into three main types.

1. Wet snow avalanches.
2. Dry snow avalanches.
3. Slab avalanches.

Wet avalanches usually occur in spring when the snow is about to melt due to increase in temperature, these avalanches are considered to be the least dangerous one.

While dry avalanches are like clouds of powder hiding beneath is the rapidly moving snow which is considered to be its core that is a fluidized mix of air and ice particles in a ratio of 70 30 percent. 

On the other hand the most dangerous of the avalanches are the slab avalanches in which a huge chunk of solid snow in form of a slab breaks away from the slope in the process sliding across a layer of lose snow crystals that are underneath it. Slab avalanches are usually caused by skiers and they destroy every thing in their path.

Some Of The Most Destructive Avalanches In History

Following are some the most deadly avalanches in human history inflicting huge amount of damage and a staggering death toll.

The February of 1992 will always be remembered in eastern turkey as it brought losses and mourning. The place of Mount Gabar is renowned for heavy snowfall. But the snowfall of February 1992 went a little too much; recording up to at least thirty feet of snow at some places.

The result was catastrophic, a very large avalanche started to make its pace on the slopes of Mount Gabar and with in seconds engulfed the villages of Gormec, Sirnak, and Seclice. With in minutes these villages disappeared in the snow. Raising the death toll to over 250 and leaving several injured.

The casualties were more than half of the village’s population. The avalanche also buried a military check post just outside the village killing seventy of the one twenty troops that occupied it. Eventually the government of turkey declared the area as a disaster zone.

Perhaps the worst avalanches reported in the history of United States Of America was the avalanche of Willington, Washington.

The disaster occurred on March the 1^st 1910. This avalanche is known in the history as Willington snow slide. A huge mass of snow fell from the Cascade Mountains and went down on Wellington hitting the railroad station area.

The entire station along with carriages, rails, three locomotives and other debris were taken away and buried 150 feet underneath the gorge. Leaving behind 150 dead and dozens injured and severely wounded.

The winter of 1950-1951 also took with it many lives, leaving many homeless and dozens under the fearful and grim memories of the tragic avalanche that hit Alps of south-central Europe. 

The January of 1951 received more than usual snowfall at some places more than seven feet. The result was the recipe for avalanche. And finally in the last week of January the white killer was let lose.

Resulting in more than hundred avalanches during the winter season wiping out entire vegetation and destroying homes and raging havoc on mankind. The village of Airolo was completely wiped out. That particular winter claimed more than 280 casualties of the dwellers of Alps.