Rock fall victims were British climbers

A massive new rock fall hit Thursday, cracking with a roar off the El Capitan rock formation, injuring one person and sending huge plumes of white dust surging through the valley floor below.

The slide came a day after a giant slab of granite plunged from the same formation, killing a British man and injuring his wife. They were on a hiking and climbing visit.

One person was injured Thursday and was flown to a hospital, park ranger Scott Gediman said.

Meanwhile, the man killed Wednesday was identified as Andrew Foster, 32, of Wales. The park didn’t identify his wife, but said she remained hospitalized.

The park indicated that seven rock falls occurred during a fourhour period Wednesday on the southeast face of El Capitan. However, it was rare for such a collapse to kill anyone, longtime climbers said Thursday.

Rocks at the world-renowned park’s climbing routes break loose and crash down about 80 times a year. The elite climbers know the risk but know it’s rare to get hit and killed by the rocks.

“It’s a lot like a lightning strike,” said Alex Honnold, who made history June 3 for being the first to climb El Capitan alone and without ropes. “Sometimes geology just happens.”

The last time a climber was killed by a rock falling at Yosemite was in 2013, when a Montana climber fell after a rock dislodged and sliced his climbing rope. It was preceded by a 1999 rock fall that crushed a climber from Colorado. Park officials say rock falls overall have killed 16 people since 1857 and injured more than 100.