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Earthquake Damage

The Road to Poas Earthquake damage pics - (24) more edit 2009-01-21 - rec# 89

Earthquake damage (The Road to Poas) When I was in Washington I received an email from my landlord in Costa Rica. He said that I didn't need to worry. There was no damage to the house, the walls were standing and that there no cracks in the wall. Also, that none of the neighbors were killed or injured. This was the first I heard of the earthquake, which had struck Costa Rica January 8th. I went to the Internet to see what I could find out about the event. Many of the pictures I saw looked like they had been taken right up the mountain from my house. Today I went up the road with my camera to see what I could see. I made it up to about 10k before the park before I was turned back by the mud, the rain and the cold. The damage was amazing. It looked to me like about the last 20k of road had been buried in mud from the mountain sliding down. There were many points where I stopped and could only see fresh dirt and mud all around, nothing growing. The worst slides seem to have happened away from any homes. I read that the park opened yesterday and that there were a total of 7 visitors that day. At the end of my trip today I stopped to ask how much further it was to the park and was told that the park was closed, however I passed a total of 5 tourist vans heading up or down the hill, so... If I go back up I'll dress warm.