Man Dies in Rock Slide at Yosemite National Park
July 11, 1996
CNN.com
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, California (CNN) -- A massive granite slab slid off a cliff at Yosemite National Park and crushed a man to death at an ice cream stand, authorities said Thursday.Emiliano Morales, 20, of Montebello, was crushed beneath a tree and killed Wednesday night, the National Park Service said. A park visitor captured the rock slide on video. (708K QuickTime movie)
"It was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life," John Lydon of Torrance said of the dust cloud hundreds of feet high. It "looked like a tornado. You could see it coming toward you."
At least 14 people were injured. Most suffered from dust inhalation, but two people had more serious injuries.
Nearly 150 rescue workers wearing surgical masks to avoid inhaling the dust, used search dogs to look for victims in the rubble near the start of the John Muir trail.The slide hurled huge granite boulders down a cliff, creating an air blast that knocked down trees and sent a cloud of dust 3,000 feet into the air. (254K AIFF or WAV sound)
The rock slide began when a rock up to 400 feet wide atop the cliff at Glacier Point, elevation 7,214 feet, broke loose at the start of the trail that winds through the high country of the southern Sierra, about 150 miles east of San Francisco.
Last month, renovations were made at Glacier Point, including construction of a granite amphitheater. It was not known whether the construction led to the rock slide. Rock slides are common in the park, usually after heavy rain, but it had not rained recently.
Dust hampers search
"It felt like an earthquake and sounded like cannon fire," said witness Bill Leavengood, a tourist from St. Petersburg, Florida. "There were two big booms, then the cloud started forming. It was as tall as the mountains within a minute."
Early search efforts were hampered because it took 45 minutes for the dust to settle, said Yosemite's Deputy Superintendent Hal Grovert. The search, under granite boulders the size of freight cars, was called off at midnight because of the dark.
No rocks reached the valley floor and no roads were blocked, but the falling trees leveled a snack bar, Park Ranger Rick Smith said. The slide occurred at one of the busiest times of the year.
The park remains open but the area where the trees fell is closed off, Smith said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/11/yosemite.update