What if I told you that there was a "day in which the mountain rolled into the sea" in Venezuela? What would you think? It sounds almost poetic, but it describes the country's worst natural tragedy in history.

It all began with a week of heavy rain, a storm at the beginning of December 1999, when the whole nation's attention was fixed almost entirely on the shifting political events that would mark the end of an era and the beginning of something revolutionary - the age of a new referendum under Hugo Chavez's government.

But all eyes would certainly soon turn to the events occurring across the coast in Vargas state, as the rain continued to fall and soon turned into something much, much worse.

In this episode of the Learn Spanish with Stories podcast, we’ll delve into Venezuela's scariest natural disaster - one which marked a before and after for disaster prevention techniques and responses worldwide, such was its impact. We will discover... the Vargas Tragedy.

Transcript of this episode is available at: https://podcast.lingomastery.com/listen/1178