January 10, 1962 (Wednesday)
- An avalanche on Mount Huascarán, the tallest peak in Peru killed 4,000 people. At 6:13 pm, melting ice triggered the slide of three million tons of ice, mud and rock down the side of Huascaran, quadrupled in size as it gathered mass, and, within eight minutes, buried the town of Ranrahirca (population 2,700) the village of Yanamachico, and three other villages totaling 800 residents. Ranrahirca, which had only 50 survivors, would be rebuilt, then destroyed again in an earthquake and an even larger avalanche on May 31, 1970.
- The U.S. House of Representatives elected Majority Leader John W. McCormack of Massachusetts as the 53rd Speaker of the House, to fill the vacancy created by the death of Sam Rayburn. The 253-159 vote was along party lines, with the Democrats voting for McCormack and the Republicans for Minority Leader Charles A. Halleck of Indiana.
- Eleven coal miners were killed in an explosion at a mine near Carterville, Illinois.
Read more about this topic: January 1962
Famous quotes containing the word january:
“and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
The New England postcards,
the January ten o’clock night,
and we rose up like wheat....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)