Funviralpark Latest December 30th at 4:30pm Authorities have identified two people who died in a rockfall in Yosemite National Park on Tuesday morning.
A statement released by the National Park Service identified the victims as a couple from San Jose, Georgios Theocharous, 51, and Ming Yan, 35.
Around 9am on Tuesday, the couple’s Dodge Ram hit a rock that had fallen from 1,000 feet above El Portal Road. The collision pushed the vehicle off the highway onto the Merced River embankment.
About 185 tons of rock fell in the accident, according to a statement. National Park Service geologists are investigating the cause of the rockslide.
December 30, 3:08 p.m. Falling rocks in Yosemite National Park on Tuesday morning killed two people and temporarily closed Route 140 near the park’s entrance, officials said.
The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office received two coroner’s cases as a result of rockslides around 9 a.m. Tuesday, a sheriff’s office spokesperson told SFGATE. Not.
The incident occurred on Highway 140 near Big Oak Flat Road, or El Portal Road. This section of the highway faces the Merced River on one side and a large rocky hill on the other. The east connects to Yosemite Valley and the west connects to one of the park’s three western entrances.
The landslide closed part of El Portal Road for several hours, according to a statement by the National Park Service. TweetThe road has since reopened.
According to the National Park Service, the park has recorded more than 1,000 rockfalls in the past 150 years. 47 cases were recorded in 2021. While most Yosemite rockslides occur in winter and early spring, especially during periods of heavy rainfall and snowmelt, more than half of the rockslides recorded in the park were unknown, according to the Park Service. caused by something specific.
