In the rocky desert of the Andean Mountains lies the picturesque Callejón de Huaylas Valley. On both sides it is squeezed by mighty mountain ranges that resemble the spines of huge prehistoric lizards - petrified, but still formidable in their grandeur.
The Callejón de Huaylas Valley is very picturesque. It is adorned with flowering gardens, meadows and the swift Rio Santa River, which noisily carries its transparent icy waters along the rocky channel. They reflect the small villages scattered on high mountains and the handsome town of Huaras. A thin green ribbon winds the valley between the Black and White Cordillera ridges, and among them the majestic Huascaran (6768 meters) stands out, which seems to be smoking with clouds constantly clinging to it. Glaciers are slowly sliding down from its steep slopes.
In 1975, the Cordillera Blanca ("White Ridge") was declared a state reserve by a special decree of the Peruvian government. She formed the Huascaran National Park. Everything in this park is unique. Lush tropical flora is represented, for example, by such an amazing plant as the Puia Raimondi. This giant herb reaches 15 meters in height and belongs to the pineapple family. It is found only in the Central Andes, and even there in very rare places. Pouyyas look like upside-down palms because they have a dense crown of leaves growing on the bottom of the trunk. Each puja leaf is edged with rows of hard, sharp and curved spikes that look like fishhooks. On some leaves, you can see the remains of dead birds that inadvertently caught on this trap. As the seeds ripen, the trunk of the puja dries up and seems to be charred. In the sun, it casts a blued metallic sheen.
Another Andean curiosity is the Kenya tree. At first glance, it seems that its silky bark is constantly bursting, twisting into ribbons, and the trees, bizarrely curved with intertwining ribbons, stand naked, like bathers. But only the upper, dying layer of the Kenyu, darkened by the husk, hangs. And the rest of the layers, thick and smooth, are colored with such a pinkish scarlet that it falsely creates the impression of nakedness.
However, admiring the Andean beauties, one should not forget how formidable Huascaran can be - a snow-white two-humped peak with a small dark spot on one of the slopes.
Peru often suffers from earthquakes. However, none of them was accompanied by such dire consequences as the earthquake that occurred on May 31, 1970. It was Sunday afternoon and the first soccer match of the World Cup had just ended, where the teams of Mexico and the USSR met. The fans were still excitedly discussing the results of the football match, but the hour of the traditional siesta had already come, and many Peruvians went to rest after lunch.
The inhabitants knew that this valley was dangerous before. So, in 1962, an avalanche of snow and stone that fell buried 350 people in the valley. However, the people got used to the danger of Huascarana and continued to live in the valley.
On this day in May, at about half past three, the inhabitants first heard a distant rumble, and then the earth shook and shook. Vertical and horizontal shocks destroyed houses, the earth swelled and subsided, cracks gaped all around. For decades, the energy accumulated in the earth's crust raged for only a few minutes. But these minutes destroyed what millions of people created, they brought grief and suffering.
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The source of the earthquake was in the Pacific Ocean, about 130 kilometers from Mount Huascaran, but the earthquake shook the rocks and ice on the mountainside. From friction, the ice began to melt. The first aftershocks tore a huge block from Huascaran. With the speed of a courier train, she plunged downward, carrying with her an avalanche of stones, earth, ice and snow. Loose deposits began to collapse along with them. This is how a rock-ice avalanche was formed, the volume of which was approximately 100 million cubic meters. Rushing down the slope, gaining speed and increasing in size, the avalanche quickly became gigantic. Scientists suggest that in some places the speed of the avalanche could reach 1000 kilometers per hour, which seems completely incredible. But this is evidenced by the facts of "shooting" boulders at a distance of four kilometers. Burrowing into the groundthe boulders left craters above them with a diameter of up to thirty meters. The largest of these blocks weighed 65 tons.
From a 25-degree slope, an avalanche hit the Rio Santa River valley and filled up the town of Ranragirk. At first, people could still notice a snow cloud over the mountain, but after a few seconds an explosion was heard, as if somewhere shot from a cannon. It was too late to escape, only in one of the neighboring towns several people escaped on a hillock.
When the avalanche reached the Rio Santa Valley, it began to move more slowly and turned into a mud-stone stream. Its speed dropped to 25 kilometers, then the flow stopped. But part of the avalanche turned aside, crossed the high ridge and roared through the town of Yungai.
The beautiful city was surrounded by greenery at the foot of the white-headed Huascaran. It was a large tourist center with a population of 25 thousand people. And in five minutes it was all over: Yungai was gone. Only the cemetery hill with the figure of Jesus Christ was the only surviving part of the town. A ten-meter layer of mud covered Yungai, leaving a steaming mud sea in its place. Only the tops of a few palm trees in the center of the stream indicated its location.
The mudflow destroyed and carried away into the ocean several small villages. Even today, almost thirty years later, the valley looks almost the same as after the disaster. On its surface there are stones as high as a two-story house, and centuries-old trees are scattered across the fields. The soil turned into a lifeless, ash-gray crust of mud cracked from the heat.
Like Yungai, Kahakai and the port of Kasma on the ocean coast have practically disappeared from the face of the earth. Huaras, Romabamba, the major port of Chimbote and the city of Warmay on the coastal strip were destroyed by 70-90 percent. Roads were destroyed, swollen rivers tore down bridges and flooded airfields.
Eight days of mourning was declared in Peru. Seventy thousand dead, 150 thousand wounded, twenty thousand missing and eight hundred thousand left without shelter, clothing and food - such is the terrible result of this natural disaster. Czechoslovak climbers who were going to conquer the Andean peaks found their grave under a stone-ice avalanche.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev