of the Quebrada San Julián (Saint Julian Ravine), and this watershed produced very large boulders and a massive inundated area. Approximately 1/3 of the Caraballeda fan was inundated by debris flows, and the entire fan is built of past debris flow deposits. The floods and debris flows of 1999 did not follow the eastern channel on Caraballeda. This channel, formed during the 1951 floods, had been lined with concrete and designed to safely transport the flows into the sea. Instead, the debris flows overwhelmed the channel and the flows overtopped the banks wherever the channel changed direction. Once free of the culvert, the channel rapidly avulsed across the fan and spread debris throughout the community. These overbank flows demolished 2-story houses and destroyed the first two stories of apartment buildings. Farther down the fan, the debris flows routed themselves down streets. As the flows progressed, they left thinner and thinner deposits, though they often still exceeded 1 meter (3 feet) in thickness. After several avulsions, the channel roughly followed the pre-1951 flood path. USGS geologists estimate the deposit volume to be at least 1.8 million cubic meters (from comparing topographic scans) or 1.9 million cubic meters (from field measurements). This is among the largest rainfall-induced debris flow deposits in recorded history, though volcanic-induced debris flows can be ten times as large. Subaqueous deposition extended the shoreline an additional 40–60 meters into the sea. The deposit thicknesses range from 4–5 meters (maximum of 5.3 meters) near the center of the fan to around 0.5 meters near the pre-flood shoreline. Maximum boulder sizes decreased towards the shoreline due to the decreasing slope of the fan. Damage The disaster caused estimated damages of US $0.07 to $3.5 billion dollars. The death toll was considered to be between 10,000 and 30,000—the exact number of casualties is difficult to determine as there is no reliable census data from the region at that time, especially about shanty towns and small communities that were completely wiped out. Moreover, only some 1,000 bodies were recovered, with the rest swept to sea by the mud or buried in the landslides. More than 8,000 homes and 700 apartment buildings were destroyed in Vargas, displacing up to 75,000 people. The mudslides significantly altered more than of the coastline in Vargas. Over 70% of the total population of Vargas State was affected by the disaster. Public services, like water, electricity, phone lines,