When Nature Gets Nasty
All photos copyright 2008 by Bill Baio. All rights reserved.
We have had some inclement weather for the past several days during which there has been plenty of rain though lightly falling. During this same time we experienced the shake rattle and roll of a 6.1 magnitude tremor whose epicenter was about 5 miles west of Puerto Armuelles on November 19, 2008 at 1:12 AM. The bed did a dance and the Grandfather clock stopped. Sombra could have cared less but Vi & I did not rest easy for the remainder. So far our only loss was a large blue glass decorative plate which could not maintain it's balance on the fireplace mantle. It was a nice chotchkie. Now the shards lie in a box. The amount of moisture we have received turned the Rio Chiriqui Viejo into a roiling mass of destructive hydrology. We had seen a similar manifestation in February of 2005, but not with the force and damage as this time around. Fortunately the river is a significant distance away and we were fortunate to witness the wrath of Mother nature with jaw dropping awe with no harm. I present for your perusal a very different Chirqui Viejo.
A rescue worker gazes past a fallen tree trunk down into the abyss where this road once continued on.
The river carved out all that land between Nov 22 and Nov 23.
Kind of ironic to see this sign.
Two houses were consumed overnight just in front of and to the right ofthe existing one.
The river has extended well beyond it's banks.
This is one of the buildings of Finca Florentina, a coffee farm, located on the other side of the river that the road in the first picture used to go to.
The run off has created an island as this pull back shows. Stones and debris are left center.
This church in Bambito last it's back wall to the river.
Up close and personal
Note the debris line on the left of the picture. This shows how high the water cleared the bank.
Look at the large rocks and tree trunk deposited.