HUGE mudslide in Colorado - 3 missing

[CodeRedR51]

This isn't far from my home town (maybe 20 minute drive). The immensity of this slide is incredible, looks like the whole side of the mountain just gave up. 3 people are currently missing, fortunately this was not a well populated area.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-colorado-mudslide-20140525,0,5936260.story

 

[TenEightyOne]

Pretty powerful looking slide

I guess the missing are walkers/workers of some kind? Or are there a few dwellings round there? It's a strikingly beautiful place, incidentally.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Pretty powerful looking slide

I guess the missing are walkers/workers of some kind? Or are there a few dwellings round there? It's a strikingly beautiful place, incidentally.

Apparently there was a small slide first which blocked the irrigation to some farms down below. Three guys went up to try and find the blockage and then got swallowed by the larger slide.

That is a really nice area, from there and to the south. To the left of that area (north) they are really heavily into natural gas drilling and from the air it looks horrible with all the roads and cleared pads where they drill. I understand the benefits of natural gas, but it's making that area look so bad. 👎

Edit: Found that area on google maps. https://goo.gl/maps/HGOYz

 

[CodeRedR51]

Search for the 3 men has been called off because the area is still considered too unstable. Unfortunately there is rain forecast for later in the week, so it's not looking good.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Looking at the "before" Google Map view linked by @R1600Turbo you can see where the propensity for the slide lay, it actually appears that the whole hill in the background has been slipping for a long time. Effectively the slide has traveled along what looks like a normally-dry bed, possibly liquefacted in the initial pressure.

It looks like an astonishingly powerful event and utterly horrendous. Sadly this doesn't look good for the three missing guys, this looks like a completely "wet" slide rather than one initiated by a wet event that than triggers further "dry" scree avalanches, the type that are most likely to leave survivors in the scree or in covered structures.

 

[CodeRedR51]

The geologist on the scene is worried about water that is accumulating on the top of the slide. There was a creek that ran down there which as effectively become a water fall after the slide and it's pooling water at the top now. They've really given up hope of finding the 3 guys and said that given the current situation they probably will not be able to get in and find them for quite a while.