Week 8: Mass Wasting
Chile's Mass Wasting Chile does experience mass wasting due to its position on the Ring of Fire, but it is not only triggered by natural events like earthquakes, and heavy rain. Just gravity can have an effect on mass wasting! What is mass wasting? Mass wasting is when rocks, soil, or debris end up going downwards. This creates landslides, rockslides, mudslides, and even avalanches which are a part of mass wasting. Chile has had many mass wasting activities from tectonic activities due to it being close to the Andes mountains. Earthquakes have triggered these mountains in the past. An example of Chile having mass wasting was the Villa Santa Lucia mud landslide that occurred on December 16, 2017, in the southern area of Chile. What caused the deadly landslides was the heavy rainfall and weak land. This caused the mud to cause a lot of destruction to infrastructure and even resulted in 20 people dead. The president of Chile declared a disaster zone and ordered resc...