Monsoon Rains

Dozens killed as landslide sweeps buses off road into gorge

Soldiers and rescue workers search for bodies of landslide victims even as they try to pull out two buses that were covered in mud after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain in …

 

Monsoon Rains throughout Asia are in the summers. They are torrential tropical rains. I think there are rains like this in the south of the U.S. where you get huge raindrops where even being hit by one of them might ruin your shirt for the day because they are so big the raindrops. But, when they come down by the thousands it is sort of like being under a waterfall just walking outside. When this much water comes out of the sky all at once it often is fatal if there are not rivers and streams capable of holding this much water at one time. this also happens where I live in California where a lot of rain hits mountains here. It is not uncommon to get 15 or 16 inches of rain in California in 3 days. Southern States in the South East often are like this too. 

 

The scariest experience of monsoon type rains I experience on the Road to Hana in Maui when I lived in Hana Maui. So, when they speak of buses being washed off roads I know this kind of experience from my Ford Van that I owned in 1989 where it started to float on the road to Hana so I couldn't get traction on my rear tires to not be washed off a cliff into the ocean there which would have been fatal to me and likely all my family then. I told the family (everyone but me) to run to the back of the van so the rear wheels would touch the ground again so we might survive. The kids were pretty scared and so was I. Also, rocks up to 1 foot across were hitting my van wheels and heading off into the ocean. Then water was going across my feet across the floor of the van at that point. But, finally when I had the family jump up and down over the rear wheels I got enough traction when the wheels periodically hit the road and I was able to maneuver the van to not be washed off the cliff into the ocean below. However, I realized you cannot drive from Hana to Kahului where the airport is during a major rainstorm. Everyone who lives in Hana told me this but I didn't believe them until this experience. So, when we went into kahului to buy less expensive food and goods once a week if it was raining hard we spent the night in Kahului at a hotel.

So, wherever you are in Monsoon rains it is important to realize just how bad it can get. It's why there are not roads at all through most of the Himalayas because of the raging rivers during Monsoon season every summer. Instead there are trails and suspension bridges because roads tend to get washed out during monsoon season where buses and cars and trucks regularly get washed off of roads into rivers etc. in Asia.  The Himalayas because they are the highest mountains in the world tend to create the worst monsoon effects and travel unless by plane above the storms often becomes impossible. Also, the humidity is deadly too in summers just being out in it at all combined with the heat.