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What Causes Avalanches? The behavior of an avalanche depends on the structure of the snowpack, but that's only one ingredient. An avalanche requires all the wrong conditions at the wrong time.
Avalanches and avalanche paths share common elements: a start zone where the avalanche originates, a track along which the avalanche flows, and a runout zone where the avalanche comes to rest. The debris deposit is the accumulated mass of the avalanched snow once it has come to rest in the run-out zone.
While a major event such as an earthquake can cause large rockslides to happen, a majority of slides occur due to a combination of gravitational pressure and erosional influences. Anthropogenic activities, such as altering the geometry of a hill through excavation, can also change the stress state, contributing to slope instability.
Avalanches can be triggered spontaneously, by factors such as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, other animals, and earthquakes. Primarily composed of flowing snow and air, large avalanches have the capability to capture and move ice, rocks, and trees.
Movement, rapidly changing weather, wind — any one of these things can cause an avalanche. But experts say 90% of the avalanches that cause injuries or deaths are triggered by the victim or ...
The video footage is violent and unsettling. On Sunday, a torrent of ice, water, mud, and debris surged through a steep river valley in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. At least 32 people ...
Avalanche protection wall built after the avalanche of 1999. The families of the victims demanded to know why the avalanche penetrated the supposedly safe zone and devastated Galtür. However, hazard zoning is dependent on the historical record, and there was no evidence of avalanches traveling so far on this track in the past.
Avalanches kill an average of 39 people in North America every year.