LATEST Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m. Officials have identified the two people who were killed by a rockslide in Yosemite National Park on Tuesday morning.
According to a statement released by the National Park Service, the victims have been identified as 51-year-old Georgios Theocharous and 35-year-old Ming Yan, a couple from San Jose.
At about 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, the couple’s Dodge Ram was hit by rocks that fell from 1,000 feet above El Portal Road. The impact pushed the vehicle off the highway and onto the embankment of the Merced River.
About 185 tons of rock fell during the incident, according to the statement. Geologists from the National Park Service are investigating the cause of the rockslide.
Dec. 30, 3:08 p.m. A rockslide in Yosemite National Park killed two people and temporarily shut down Highway 140 near the park’s entrance Tuesday morning, officials said.
The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office received two coroner’s cases as a result of the rockslide at about 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told SFGATE. The deceased have not yet been identified.
The incident took place on Highway 140, or El Portal Road, near Big Oak Flat Road. This section of the highway hugs the Merced River on one side and is bordered by large, rocky hills on the other. It leads to Yosemite Valley to the east and one of the park’s three western entrances to the west.
The rockslide closed a portion of El Portal Road for several hours, the National Park Service said in a tweet. The road has since reopened.
More than 1,000 rockslides have been recorded in the park over the past 150 years, according to the National Park Service. Forty-seven were recorded in 2021. Most of Yosemite’s rockslides occur in winter and early spring, especially during periods of intense rainfall or snowmelt, though according to the park service, more than half of the rockslides recorded in the park weren’t known to be triggered by anything specific.