On Friday, heavy rainfall triggered a flash flood in Death Valley National Park in California. The flood buried a number of cars and ensured that several roads in the national park were closed.
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– Heavy boulders and whole trees were swept down, says John Sirlin, a photographer who witnessed the flood. He describes that streams turned into raging rivers, and water gushed down the hillsides.
– The sound of the stones coming down the hillsides was incredible, he says in a telephone interview with AP News.
Around 500 visitors and 500 employees were stranded inside the national park as the roads are blocked and the cars buried in mud, reports NTB.
Several of these sought refuge inside the historic hotel The Inn, which is located in the middle of the national park.
No injuries have yet been reported.
–The flood caused several rubbish containers to be pushed around and collided with parked cars in the park. This further led to the cars being pushed into each other.
Parts of the hotel were also flooded, writes NTB.
Death Valley National Park is located in the Mojave Desert on the border between California and Nevada. And is usually the hottest and driest of the national parks in the USA.
On Friday, 37 millimeters of rain fell. It is almost as much rain as the area normally receives during an entire year.
Also earlier this week, the national park was hit by a major flood.
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