So... theres a balrog in the basement...

[Tinman]

I felt like refreshing my Dwarf knowledge and started reading the appendices on Durin's folk again today. I found this little blurb to be interesting: "Durin was slain by it, and the year after Náin I, his son; and then the glory of Moria passed, and its people were destroyed or fled far away."

I wonder why it took so long for the Balrog to evict the dwarves from Moria. I'm not really sure how they held it at bay for so long. I'm just trying to imagine what the year was like from the point that the Balrog killed Durin, to the following year when Nain died, and then the dwarves started leaving or were further defeated by it. Was the Balrog just not interested with the dwarves and would chose to attack them sporadically? Were the dwarves actually able to defend themselves for a year before he broke the gates or something? I always thought it was odd that Balin's Colony lasted so long... but moria is a big place, I attributed this to the fact that maybe the balrog just didn't know they had been there. Besides, Balin's crew was killed by orcs, I think. But going a year living in the same cave as the balrog... i'm just curious to some theories as to how they lasted this long.