Yungay, Peru

On 11 January 1962 an avalanche from Huascarán destroyed Ranrahirca and eight other villages in which an estimated 4,000 were killed. Yungay was saved.[2][3]

In 1962, two American scientists, David Bernays and Charles Sawyer, had reported seeing a massive vertical slab of rock being undermined by a glacier on mount Huascarán Norte, which threatened to fall and cause the obliteration of Yungay. According to Sawyer, when this was reported in the Expreso newspaper (27 September 1962), the government ordered them to retract or face prison, and they fled the country. Citizens were forcibly prevented from speaking of an impending disaster. Eight years later, the prediction came true.[4][5]

Cemetery in Yungay

The remnants of Yungay's town church after the landslide

On 31 May 1970, the Ancash earthquake caused a substantial part of the north side of a mountain, Nevado Huascarán, to collapse and an unstable mass of glacial ice about 800 meters across at the top of Nevado Huascarán to fall. This caused a debris avalanche, burying the town of Yungay and killing 20,000 people (400 survived).[6] More than 50 million cubic meters of debris slid approximately 15 kilometers downhill at an angle of about 14 degrees. Speeds between 340 mph to 620 mph were achieved.[7] Most of the survivors were in the cemetery and stadium at the time of the earthquake, as these zones were the highest in town.

The Peruvian government has forbidden excavation in the area where the old town of Yungay is buried, declaring it a national cemetery. The current town was rebuilt 2 km (1 mi) north of the destroyed city.

The old cemetery.

Yungay Viejo (2500 m) as seen from the cemetery hill. The tinted area shows the location of the landslide caused by an earthquake on 31 May 1970, in which a part of the western flank of Huascaran Norte (6652 m) collapsed. Yungay Nuevo is behind the shaded area in the center.