Avalanche

Avalanche Latest News

Three Army personnel, including two Agniveers, lost their lives recently in a major avalanche at the Siachen base camp in Ladakh.

About Avalanche

• An avalanche is a large amount of snow that quickly moves down a slope. 
• An avalanche can be deadly because it will bury or sweep away anything in its path. 
• Large amounts of sliding rocks, earth, or other materials may also be called avalanches. But these are often known as landslides.
• Many different conditions make an avalanche possible. 
  • An avalanche is more likely to happen on a slope without trees or large rocks. These things help to keep snow in place. 
  • A weak layer of snow also makes an avalanche likely. 
• Once the conditions are right, several things can start an avalanche.
  • Heavy snowfall, strong wind, and rising temperatures all can loosen snow on a slope. 
  • Falling rocks or ice also can cause snow to slide. 
  • Even the movement of a skier, a snowboarder, or a snowmobile can trigger an avalanche.
• There are two main types of snow avalanches—sluffs and slabs. 
• Sluff avalanches occur when the weak layer of a snowpack is on the top. 
  • A sluff is a small slide of dry, powdery snow that moves as a formless mass. 
  • Sluffs are much less dangerous than slab avalanches.
• A slab avalanche occurs when the weak layer lies lower down in a snowpack. 
  • This layer is covered with other layers of compressed snow. 
  • When the avalanche is triggered, the weak layer breaks off, pulling all the layers on top of it down the slope. 
  • These layers tumble and fall in a giant block, or slab.
• Avalanches vary in destructive power from harmless to large enough to destroy mature forests or flatten villages.
• When an avalanche stops, the snow becomes solid like concrete, and people are unable to dig out. 
• People caught in avalanches can die from suffocation, trauma, or hypothermia.
• People in mountainous areas protect themselves from avalanches in several ways. 
  • Special fences help to hold snow in place. 
  • Barriers help to stop sliding snow or change its direction. 
  • Explosives help to clear snow from places where avalanches are likely to occur.

Source: IT

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