Avalanche

Avalanche is one of the natural forces. Avalanches are the large amount of snow that fall down the mountains’ sides. Its power isn’t lesser than earthquakes or flood. It is the destroyer and killer of the winter time.

http://nsidc.org/snow/gallery/avalanche.jpg

Types of Avalanches

There are two kinds of avalanches, loose and slab. Loose avalanche happens when the snow bank starts to collapse and slides down the hill. Slab avalanche usually occurs after the loose avalanche, forms as the mass of heavy, melting snow that separates from the slope and slides down the hill. It can be also called as the delay action of loose avalanche.

http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/forecasting/snow%20avalanche%20their%20characteristics,%20forecasting%20and%20control.htm

How do avalanche form?

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resources/ess05/sci/ess/watcyc/avalanche/index.html

Causes

There are numerous causes of avalanche. Weather, temperature, slope steepness, wind direction, terrain and snow pack are the causes of the avalanche to occur. Avalanches form by the snow pack that slide down the slope, which has the wind direction clean the snow off the surface, so it make the avalanches slide down the slope with the great energy and tremendous force. Also the rapidly increase of the temperature weakens the surface layer of the snow. As the result, it occurs to be an avalanche. Furthermore, the angle of slope makes a great difference of the energy that the avalanche will have.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/weather/images/weather_focus2.jpg

Effects

The effects that cause by the avalanche have not been different from earthquakes or other destructive hazard. It can be the destroyer and killer at the same time. The avalanches cause the destruction of properties and the loss of lives. They can even uproot the trees. Most of the avalanche victims are climbers, snowboarders, skier, and hikers. The die with the tragic death, some slowly die under the snow surface, because there’s no one rescue. This hazard can slide down and damage everything in front of them, even the trees or houses. Avalanche will currently happen at the same place, they have been happening before. However, people would not mind or care much about, so as the result, the number of deaths doesn’t decrease much.

http://ljk.imag.fr/membres/Jocelyn.Etienne/avalanche-canada.jpg

Areas Effected

Avalanches mostly occur in the countries that have mountains with the low temperature, as for there need to be snow. However, not every place will have the avalanches, the places like South Vietnam, the Mile-High Stadium will not going to have the avalanche. Switzerland’s Alps, Utah’s LaSals and Nepal’s Himalayas are mostly to have avalanches. The greatest number of avalanches and loss of life are usually at the alpine countries of France, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. Moreover, United States gets to be in the fifth of worldwide rank in avalanche danger. For example, the states of Colorado, Alaska, and Utal are the dangerous areas to have the avalanche.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/programs/images/2418_avalanch_avalworldmap.gif

LEDC & MEDC

Avalanche is a natural hazard with a great force that can destroy anything. Nothing can stop it, but you can prevent from the loss of many lives and destruction of properties, so it will take very less effect on that specific area. For there is the same avalanche happens at two place at the same time, it can cause different result out of that. The differences of LEDC and MEDC will got are the economic aids, and the preparation of the countries. Mostly MEDC countries will have a better preparation for any hazards or disasters. They will have the warning system ready at any moment it will occur and the rescue system to support the people of their countries. The LEDC countries will be second from the MEDC countries, because of the money of their countries and the development that occurs. To be compare, MEDC countries will be recovered faster than LEDC countries for they have everything prepared. LEDC countries always lag behind the MEDC countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/images/g_cod_wid_02.gif

Why people live in the avalanche area?

There could be many reasons why the people still live where they live, even though they know it is dangerous or one day they will not see the world again. People at some point will think that it worth their money already to build this house, so they don’t want to move. They don’t know that for them to left this house behind and build a new one at a safer place will worth less than the life that they will loss in this hazard. Also some people don’t mind about the warning that they think by their own that it wouldn’t come to them because it’s far over there, so they wouldn’t have too scare. By that thoughts of many people cause the number of deaths. Some uneducated persons set their tents or camps on the avalanche-prone areas. It makes a less chance for them to survive, however, if you are caught in it, you should not shout or scream or else your echoes will make the snows collapse. Mostly the places that get attacked by the avalanche usually be on the mountain and it usually is the tourism area. Many tourists will come and see the view up there on the mountain without taking notice of the warning sign about avalanche.

http://campusrec.colostate.edu/images/Upload/Activities_498.JPG



Denver is a capital and well-known city of Colorado in the United State. In the winter of March 11, 1897, Denver had got a great destruction by avalanche. It is the heaviest one compare within ten years that it has got.

Causes

The incident on March 11, 1897 caused by the sudden change in weather that it instantly increased. The snow avalanches formed and slid down the mountain sides with the great force. The main cause of this avalanche is the temperature changes that form the snow pack slide down the slope.

http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/forecasting/snow%20avalanche%20their%20characteristics,%20forecasting%20and%20control.htm

Effects

These energetic avalanches destroyed everything in front of them, as to carry the shaft houses, the mountain pines and miners’ cabins with them. They also buried all the ravines and the railroads on their way. Also they caused the traffic. The depth of the snow was about 20 feet that can even cover the telegraph poles. In additional, as they slid down the mountain sides, they buried many people under its 20 feet depth. Some bodies are recovered, and some aren’t. As for some areas, they had to use dynamite to remove the pile of snows. Moreover, some areas, they use the fire work to warm down the snow packs.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/01/06/avalanche/story.co.avalanche.kmgh.jpg

Protection Measures:

At that moment of the incident, in Denver, there was an avalanche hazard rating system. But with the great force of avalanche made the safety protection didn’t work so the great number of destructions occurred. However at that time, it hadn’t got the accurate level of avalanche too.
http://www.nwac.us/education_resources/dangerscale.htm

Avalanche is one of the natural hazards that have the great impact in the world, including loss of lives, and the destruction of properties. It happens because of the rapid change in temperature from cold to warm that make the snow packs soften and slide down the mountain sides. All these temperature changes occur because of the effects on global warming of the world. If the global warming continues to be thinner and thinner, there will commonly be avalanches everywhere that are very cold. As all these happen the population growth will decrease rapidly in those countries, left the countries like Vietnam that doesn’t have snow with the steady population growth.
http://www.thedocisin.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/globalwarming.gif



Bibliography
•http://nsidc.org/snow/avalanche/
•http://www.metrokc.gov/prepare/docs/HIVA/Avalanche.pdf
•http://www.ussartf.org/avalanches.htm
•http://www.avalanche.org/~lsafc/TUTORIAL/TUTORIAL.HTM
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/forecasting/snow%20avalanche%20their%20characteristics,%20forecasting%20and%20control.htm
•http://www.nwac.us/education_resources/dangerscale.htm
•http://www.teachersdomain.org/resources/ess05/sci/ess/watcyc/avalanche/index.html
•http://avalanche.state.co.us/Accidents/Colorado/By+Season/2006-07+Season/20070313+Ruby+Jewel.htm
•http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/avalanches/currentevents.shtml
•http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/cgi-bin/resources.cgi?action=show&type=avalanches
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/TAR/avi%20review%20articles/Avalanche%20hazard%20categories.htm
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/forecasting/three%20instruments%20used%20in%20avalanche%20hazard%20forecasting.htm
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/rescue/GENERAL%20RULES%20FOR%20AVOIDING%20AND%20SURVIVING%20SNOW%20AVALANCHES.htm
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/ISSW%2098/harald.htm
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/ISSW%2098/schultz.htm
•http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=9805E4D61F31E132A25757C1A9659C94669ED7CF&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
•http://www.avalanche-center.org/Bulletins/
•http://www.avalanche-center.org/Education/danger/

Pictures & Video
•http://campusrec.colostate.edu/images/Upload/Activities_498.JPG
•http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/images/g_cod_wid_02.gif
•http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/01/06/avalanche/story.co.avalanche.kmgh.jpg
•http://www.thedocisin.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/globalwarming.gif
•http://www.nwac.us/education_resources/dangerscale.htm
•http://nsidc.org/snow/gallery/avalanche.jpg
•http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/forecasting/snow%20avalanche%20their%20characteristics,%20forecasting%20and%20control.htm
•http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/programs/images/2418_avalanch_avalworldmap.gif
•http://ljk.imag.fr/membres/Jocelyn.Etienne/avalanche-canada.jpg
•http://www.teachersdomain.org/resources/ess05/sci/ess/watcyc/avalanche/index.html