Latest December 30, 4:30 PM Officials have identified two people who died in a rock fall in Yosemite National Park on Tuesday morning.
According to a statement released by the National Park Service, the victims have been identified as Georgios Theogaras, 51, and Ming Yan, 35, a couple from San Jose.
Around 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, the couple’s Dodge Ram was struck by rocks that fell from a height of 1,000 feet on El Portal Road. The impact pushed the vehicle off the highway and onto the banks of the Merced River.
About 185 tons of rock fell during the incident, according to the report. Geologists from the National Park Service are investigating the cause of the rock slide.
December 30, 3:08 pm Inside is a rocky slope Yosemite National Park Two people were killed and Highway 140 was temporarily closed near the entrance to the park Tuesday morning, officials said.
A spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office told SFGATE that the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office received two fatality cases as a result of the rock slide around 9:00 a.m. Tuesday. The dead have not yet been identified.
The incident happened on Highway 140 or El Portal Road near Big Oak Flat Road. This stretch of highway hugs the Merced River on one side and is bordered by large, rocky mountains on the other. It is one of the park’s three western entrances to Yosemite Valley to the east and to the west.
A rock slide closed part of El Portal Road for several hours, the National Park Service said Tweet. The road has since been reopened.
Over 1,000 rock falls have been recorded in the park over the past 150 years. National Park Service. Forty-seven were registered in 2021. Most of Yosemite’s rockfalls occur in the winter and early spring, especially during periods of heavy rain or snowmelt, and more than half of the rocks recorded in the park are unknown, according to the park service. Triggered by something specific.
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