Athlete Javier Rivadeneira shared footage captured by Jose Forero of a large serac collapsing around them on the Peruvian mountain of Vallunaraju while partaking in an international rescue course. While the video is scary and the backwash was described as intense, it appears nobody was injured in the collapse.
A serac is a pinnacle or tower of glacier ice typically located on the surface of a glacier. They form as a glacier flows either down an icefall or by an intersection of crevasses. When these seracs collapse, people standing too close can be killed by falling ice or debris.
“I felt real fear when it started to crack, and I was the “back-up” for my friends from Colombia and my teammate, who was able to carry out the rescue maneuver very well and recover our rope team member.” – Javier Rivadeneira (translated from Spanish to English)
Travel on glaciers comes with a host of dangers, including seracs and crevasses. An individual should never walk on a glacier alone, as the risk of slipping on the ice and sliding into an open crevasse or breaking through into a hidden crevasse is too great. Glaciologists and mountaineers tend to use crevasse probes to detect hidden crevasses in addition to practicing methods of rescuing someone who’s fallen into a crevasse or rescuing themselves.
