The Destruction of the Colombian City of Armero During the 1985 Volcanic Eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz
Introduction
The small agricultural town of Armero, Colombia is nestled within the Lagunilla River canyon about thirty miles from the volcano Nevado del Ruiz. Before the disastrous volcanic eruption of 1985, Armero was a picturesque and prosperous cotton and rice farming center which owed its rich soil to previous eruptions of the nearby volcano (Russell et al, 1985). While these earlier eruptions did cause damage, the area was not as densely populated in the 1500s and 1800s as it would be in 1985 when Armero alone would be inhabited by 50,000 people (“Town survivors watched fire,” 1985). Throughout the twentieth century, up until 1984, the volcano had been “sleeping peacefully for as long as anyone could remember;” however, in the later part of that year, it would begin to stir again (Bruce, 2001). On November 13, 1985, the Nevado del Ruiz erupted and produced lahars (high-speed avalanches of mud and water caused by the melting of the volcano’s ice caps) that destroyed the town of Armero and claimed the lives of 23,080 of its residents (Montalbano, 1985).
In the months leading up to the eruption, scientists, along with Colombian authorities, worked together to determine if and when the Nevado del Ruiz would erupt. The challenge with predicting a volcanic eruption, however, is that volcanoes are “controlled by interactions of many processes” and “have the potential for behaviors that are inherently unpredictable;” therefore, it is impossible to know with certainty when a volcano will erupt (Sparks, 2003, p. 1–2). By the time the Civil Defense officials issued the order for the evacuation of Armero, the hour was late, communications systems were down, and there was no way to alert everyone in the town (Sullivan, 1986). While the burden of determining when to evacuate Armero was on the shoulders of both the scientific and governmental communities of Colombia, the person the city looked to for guidance was its mayor, Ramon A. Rodríguez. He was concerned for his town because it was built near “the dammed water of the Lagunilla river” and this dam posed a danger of flooding Armero should it be damaged by a volcano or earthquake. He had petitioned the Colombian government for several months to provide the means by which the dam could be safely drained, warning the government that should the volcano Nevado del Ruiz awaken, the combination of the volcano, its snow caps, and the dammed water, would be “a time bomb that would raze Armero” (Kuroiwa, 1988, p. 815). However, the governor of Tolima, Eduardo Alzate Garcia, concluded that Rodríguez was only making “a pest of himself [and] eventually refused to hear any more from him on the subject” (Montalbano, 1985).
Historical and Political Contexts for the Eruption at Nevado del Ruiz
Prior to the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz, the Colombian government and citizens still had fresh in their minds another incident that involved a volcano — La Soufrière in the Carribbean island of Guadeloupe in 1976. La Soufrière had erupted earlier during the twentieth century, but the eruption caused very little damage and no one was injured. In July 1976, this volcano began to show signs of life, sending forth “showers of stones, ash, gases and steam” (“Guadeloupe Volcano,” 1976). Due to these indicators, volcanologists began studying La Soufrière and came to the conclusion that, due to the building up of gas pressure, the chances were high for the volcano to erupt in the near future. Around 73,000 people were evacuated from the area and for months “the capital city of Basse-Terre was left as a ghost town” (McLure, “Volcano Alert”). The volcano, however, failed to erupt as the volcanologists had predicted, and the six-month-long evacuation cost millions of dollars and caused “severe socioeconomical difficulties” for the island. The crisis now ranks as “one of the most costly of the 20th century although there was no loss of life” (Hinks, 2014, p. 9). The legacy left by this anticlimactic event was to instill in governments skepticism toward the predictions of volcanologists, which would negatively impact the government’s reaction to their predictions when the Nevado del Ruiz began to show signs of eruption.
The Nevado del Ruiz is a volcano in the Colombian mountain range. This mountain range was created by the steady “collision between the two tectonic plates,” the solid pieces of the earth’s crust that float on top of the hot melting rock of the mantle layer of the earth. These two plates ram into each other with such force that they have formed three mountain ranges: the Cordillera Occidental, the Cordillera Oriental, and the Cordillera Central. The volcanos in this range are stratovolcanos, with more changeable and explosive eruptions than shield volcanos. Nevado del Ruiz is one of these stratovolcanos which lie within the Cordillera Central range (Bruce, 2001, p. 21–23).
In mid-1980, the Nevado del Ruiz posed a danger for three states in Colombia, the states of Caldas, Risaralda, and Tolima. Two of these states, Caldas and Risaralda, make up what is known as the Cafetera region, a prosperous coffee growing area that escaped “the political and economic tragedies that plagued most of Colombia.” With an interest in protecting their investments in their coffee producing businesses, the leaders of the Cafetera region had physically and financially ensured preparations were in place in case a disaster struck (Bruce, 2001, p. 16). On the other hand, the third state, Tolima, was a farming community that was comprised of poor and uneducated people. Unemployment and poverty rates in this state are consistently five percent higher than Colombia as a whole (“Tolima Fact Sheets,” 2016).
Tolima’s economic situation and distrust for the government stemmed from the effects of the Colombian Civil War, known as La Violencia, a war between the Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party which lasted from 1948–1958. Before the war, most citizens of Tolima worked toiling on land owned by landowners and lived at poverty levels. Most children, at this time, could not even attend school because of the geographical distances that lay between families in this rural, dispersed community (Henderson, 1985, p. 97). Political events in the state of Tolima played a major role in escalating La Violencia and much of the violence in the last years of the war took place in Tolima (p. 248). In the years following the war, Tolima suffered economic hardship due to “severe declines in agricultural productivity” (p. 231), but by 1985 Tolima was starting to recover and experience “social modernizations,” which included the construction of roads and the installation of electrical distribution systems (p. 250). However, the people of Tolima still lacked the finances and governmental pull held by the coffee-producing businesses and were unable to put into place any viable disaster plans (Bruce, 2001, p. 16).
Throughout modern history, Colombia has also been encumbered by various political factions clawing for power in the government. Ever since La Violencia, the Colombian government has been split into two main conflicting powers: the established conservative government and the communist-based political movement which became known as FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). FARC is a political movement based on Marxist ideology and is notorious for its use of guerrilla tactics. While the group has “never admitted its full involvement in the drugs trade,” evidence has demonstrated that the group has survived on “money brought in through kidnapping, extortion, and beginning in the early 1980s, cocaine” (Phippen, 2016). In the 1980s, a new movement known as Unión Patriótica (UP) began to gain ground in Colombia. The goal of this movement was to take steps toward establishing an understanding “between the government and the FARC guerrillas.”
One of the key figures of this movement was Belisario Betancur Cuartas, who was elected as President of Colombia on August 7, 1982. When he took office, in his inaugural speech, he promised to make an effort to bring peace to Colombia and to “extend his hand [to those who have taken up weapons] so that they might exercise their rights” (Dudley, 2004, p. 15). Though his efforts laid some groundwork for future presidents of Colombia, at the time, they were largely unsuccessful and “marred by extremes of violence that tested Colombia’s long-term commitment to democracy” (“Colombia”). Betancur would continue as President of Colombia until 1986, still serving in office during the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz.
Due to these governmental struggles, Colombia had not yet had the opportunity to develop the level of scientific expertise and resources necessary to deal with the complexities of this kind of natural disaster (Graham, 1985). In fact, Colombia’s primary access to an understanding of seismographs and their usefulness in detecting volcanic activity is due to Jesús Emilio Ramírez, a priest who, in 1922, as a teenager, developed an interest in seismography. Just five years before the Nevado del Ruiz would erupt, Ramírez died. While he provided some foundation for understanding seismographic predictions of volcanos, the scientific community in the area did not have enough experience to accurately interpret the seismographic read-outs (Bruce, 2001, p. 30–35).
Even when the seismographs were registering an imminent eruption, the scientific community interpreted this as a defect in the equipment or interference from the wind (p. 80). This is unsurprising as the seismographic equipment that the scientists had was hardly technologically advanced and was on loan-out from the hydro-electric company, which was constantly requesting for the equipment to be returned (p. 12–13). Amid the lack of expertise in Colombia, there was one leading expert in volcanology, Marta Calvache; however, she was a young, recent graduate with limited field experience (p. 43–45). While the international community was willing to send experts into the area, political unrest hindered their entrance into the country. On November 6, 1985, “a brutal urban guerrilla group known as the M-19 had ambushed two guards and taken over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá.” After this incident, governments such as the United States put a ban on travel to Colombia (p. 58–59).
The Events Leading up to the Eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz
December 16, 1984
On the night of the sixteenth of December, those who lived on the mountain felt the first significant rumblings of the Nevado del Ruiz. Maria Elena Vivas, a proprietor for a hotel for visiting mountaineers, related how “the entire refugio was rattling . . . [The] cups and dishes inched towards the edge of the table . . . The dim light fixtures . . . swayed in a foot-long arc . . . and she felt as if her heart would burst from her chest” (Bruce, 2001, p. 37–39). Residents of the area began to suspect that the volcano was awakening. The increased rumblings and seismic activity indicated to the scientists near the Nevado del Ruiz that they should watch the volcano more closely for a period of time, and if the rumblings increased, they would alert government officials (Maugh, 1985).
December 19, 1984
Three days later, the volcano continued to rumble. Two mountaineers, John Jairo Gutierrez and Luis Fernando Toro, climbed to the top of the Nevado del Ruiz and saw that “from several distinct holes in the mud, thin columns of wispy steam billowed into the atmosphere [and] the air stank of sulfur.” As soon as the mountaineers returned from their investigation, they ensured that the information they gathered was sent to the Civil Defense (Bruce, 2001, 40–41). With this information in hand, the Civil Defense began to make plans to organize further investigations of the volcano (Voight, 1990, p. 352).
January 6, 1985
The rumblings continued and on January 6th of the next year, the Central Hidro-Electrica de Caldas, the electric company for the state of Caldas in Colombia, sent out geologists to examine the Nevado del Ruiz. The geologists took note that “a new, smaller crater had formed” inside the original crater and suggested that the “authorities should implement a geophysical and geochemical program for monitoring a probable eruption.” With the help of corporations in the area combined with the local government, the Central Hidro-Electrica de Caldas formed a civic committee in the city of Manizales, a city in the state of Caldas near the Nevado del Ruiz. This committee was given the job of forming and supporting “a scientific commission to monitor the volcanic and seismic hazard” of the Nevado del Ruiz (Voight, 1990, p. 352).
February 21, 1985
In the month of February, geological teams organized by the newly formed committee began examining the activity of the Nevado del Ruiz. News of the awakening volcano began to spread to the public. On February 21st, the primary newspaper of Manizales, La Patria, ran the first article covering the Nevado del Ruiz and the findings of the geologists (Voight, 1990, p. 352).
March 9, 1985
A seismologist from the United Nations Office of the Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO), John Tromblin, examined the Nevado del Ruiz on March 9th. He reported that the volcano was displaying activity that “corresponds to typical precursory events for an eruption of magnitude.” He recommended to the Civil Defense that they continue to have the volcano monitored, have a seismograph installed, and have the local geological society (INGEOMINAS) create a hazard map (Voight, 1990, p. 352).
March 20, 1985
The National University in Manizales hosted a conference to evaluate the risks involved with the possible eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz. This conference was attended by the local experts and authorities that would continue to be involved in the decision-making process of the disaster. At the end of the conference, they concluded that even though a recent report by INGEOMINAS stated that “the volcanic activity [of the volcano] does not represent imminent danger,” a possible eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz could not be ignored. They determined that each state was responsible for evaluating its own risk and agreed that each community needed to be informed of the danger and encouraged to organize emergency evacuation plans (Voight, 1990, p. 352).
May 4–7, 1985
Minard Hall, an Ecuadorian expert from UNDRO, examined the Nevado del Ruiz to determine the risk and provide advice to political and scientific leaders. He expressed concern that “no monitoring activities [were] being carried out” and that “at least four” seismographs should be used. He was also amazed that the Civil Defense had not yet been provided a preliminary risk map. To encourage their efforts, he showed the leaders “the Cotopaxi, Ecuador volcanic hazard map as an example of what should be done.” IGEOMINAS pointed out that they knew they were expected to create the risk map, but that “other priorities and the lack of funds precluded future work” on it (Voight, 1990, p. 353–354).
July 20, 1985
In response to Hall’s suggestions, INGEOMINAS placed four portable seismographs in locations around the Nevado del Ruiz. The seismographs, however, were not placed in ideal locations and the geologists were unable to gather relevant information from them. It was not until August that the seismographs would be of any use. At that time, an expert from the Instituto de Los Andes, Juan Duarte, arrived in the area and assisted in relocating the seismographs and training the geologists on how to properly read them (Voight, 1990, p. 355).
September 10, 1985
The volcano came to life about 4:00pm, sending a thick layer of ash and rocks across the surrounding area. One of the local scientists, Bernardo Salazar, noted that even though it was daytime, “the whole sky was dark, as if it were a moonless night” and, as he was driving away from the volcano, he was forced to proceed slowly because his vision was impaired by the “murky rain of ash.” Orders were given that only scientists were permitted on the mountain. Colombia could no longer ignore that the Nevado del Ruiz was indeed an active volcano (Bruce, 2001, p. 54–55).
September 17, 1985
For months after the initial rumblings, Mayor Rodríguez petitioned authorities to take action concerning the dangers posed to Armero by the Nevado del Ruiz. Rodríguez reported to authorities on September 17th, informing them that “his town was threatened by a landslide-dammed lake at Cirpe, 12 km upstream on the Rio Lagunillas [that contained] an estimated half million cubic meters of water” and that, coupled with the melting ice from a volcanic eruption, would doom Armero to dangerous flooding. He warned them that Armero had already endured “two previous floods [in 1935 and 1950, caused by downpours] with serious consequences for the population.” After creating a list of the areas of Armero most at risk of flooding, Rodríguez organized an emergency committee composed of leaders of the town, chiefs of Civil Defense, and members of the local Red Cross. He sent this committee to the President of Colombia to demand immediate action (Voight, 1990, p. 358).
Due to Rodríguez’ importunity, coupled with warnings from the scientific community, the Minister of Mines pushed for the creation of a map indicating the areas which were most endangered by an impending eruption. About nine months after the reports of the mountaineers, on September 17, geologists from INGEOMINAS, Central Hidro-Electrica de Caldas, and the University of Caldas, including one of the University’s students Jorge Estrada, began working together to make a hazard map of the area (Hall, 1992, p. 45). The purpose of the map was to alert the government to the areas which would potentially need to be evacuated. A professor involved in the project, Fernando Muñoz, later recalled an ironic moment during which Jorge Estrada took “a pencil to a map” and laughed as he colored Armero a muddy brown, saying, “There you go, Armero. Now we’re burying you in the mud” (Bruce, 2001, p. 17).
September 23, 1985
Less than a week after the map project began, a scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey, Darrel Herd, reported to the National University in Colombia to deliver his view of the volcanic threat. Before a “full house of locals, press, and government officials,” Herd announced that the populated areas would not be affected by a volcanic eruption and that the only danger was in “an area six miles from the summit.” Colombia was relieved to receive such an “optimistic forecast,” and, despite warnings to the contrary, many put their faith in Herd’s qualified predictions (Bruce, 2001, p. 57). His predictions, though, were based primarily on lava flow and had not taken into account the melting of the ice caps on the summit of the Nevado del Ruiz. A member of the Swiss Disaster Relief Corps and Swiss Seismological Service, Bruno Martinelli, who had been in Manizales providing seismological advice since August, claimed that the confident viewpoint was based on the emphasis that was placed on the city of Manizales which was in the state of Caldas, and did not take into account the towns in the state of Tolima, such as Armero, which were in real danger. He noted that during his entire “stay, there were no mutual contacts or cooperation between the region Caldas, where [he] was, and Tolima” (Voight, 1990, p. 359).
September 24, 1985
The next day, in response to a demand for congressional attention, testimony was presented to the Colombian Congress by the authorities, asserting that “the government was aware of the risk from the volcano and was acting to protect the population” (Montalbano, 1985). Meanwhile, as if in sync with Darrel Herd, Father Rafael Goberna, director of the Geophysical Institute at the Jesuit University in Bogotá, assured the population “that nothing [was] happening on the volcano that threaten[ed] the inhabitants of the region.” These reassurances were so convincing that it became customary to refer to anyone who raised a red flag regarding the volcano as a ‘volcanic terrorist,’ who was trying to use the threat to “cause real estate prices to plummet” (Bruce, 2001, p. 57–58).
October 6, 1985
Less than a month later, Colombia’s leading newspaper El Tiempo ran an article describing the tension felt in Armero in regards to potential dangers of the city flooding due to melting ice from the volcano’s peaks combined with gushing waters from a bursting dam.
The same article stated that Mayor Rodríguez had urged the Governor of Tolima, Eduardo Alzate Garcia, “to appoint a committee to study the danger and had asked the Government to declare the city in a state of emergency” (Treaster, 1985). The majority of authorities were clinging to the reassurances of Herd and Father Goberna and those who believed that danger did exist were under the impression that they had until December to complete maps, reports, and evacuation plans (Maugh, 1985). Also, wanting to avoid the same mistakes as occurred in Guadeloupe, the government continued to wait to see the results of the hazard map before spear-heading a full-fledged mobilization of resources against the impending disaster, a mobilization which would have included house calls to inform citizens of evacuation plans, organizing transportation for evacuations, and preparing towns just outside the danger zone for the influx of evacuees (U.N. Dept. of Humanitarian Affairs, 1985).
October 7, 1985
Three weeks after they had begun creating the hazard map, the geologists from INGEOMINAS, Central Hidro-Electrica de Caldas, and the University of Caldas delivered the final product to the government and the Civil Defense authorities. The map indicated specific areas that could be devastated by potential lahars and gave Armero a 100% chance of being flooded should the Nevado del Ruiz erupt. The authorities undervalued the map itself and worried more about the panic and the devaluation of property it could cause if widely distributed and, therefore, only a handful of copies were entrusted to a few government officials, including the Minister of Mines, the Governor of Caldas, and the Civil Defense authorities. One should note that Eduardo Alzate Garcia, the Governor of Tolima, the state which contained Armero, did not attend the meeting in which the hazard maps were distributed (Voight, 1990, p. 361). The resulting decision was for the geologists to recheck the information on the map and prepare a more detailed version to be completed by November 12. The revision would prove to be of little use as it would contain few changes and would not be “ready until a few days after the fateful eruption” (Hall, 1992, p. 45).
November 6, 1985
About a week before the eruption, the guerilla M-19 group invaded the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. M-19 was in the pay of Colombian drug lords who instructed the group to “harass the supreme court and destroy government files on cartel members who faced extradition to the United States on drug charges” (Anderson & Atta, 1988). The Palace of Justice invasion resulted in over 100 people killed, a total which included guerillas and their hostages, and 200 more people who went missing.
Meanwhile, Dave Harlow and Randy White, two top seismologists, were all set to travel to Colombia to bring their expertise and instruments to the assistance of the local scientists (Bruce, 2001, p. 59).
November 7, 1985
The next day, Dave Harlow and Randy White were informed that their trip had been canceled due to the unstable governmental situation in Colombia after the incident at the Palace of Justice (Bruce, 2001, p. 59). This meant that the National Institute of Geology and Mines and the local Colombian scientists were now on their own in assessing the volcanic activity of the Nevado del Ruiz.
The Events of the Day of The Armero Tragedy
November 13, 1985, 3:06pm
On the day of the eruption, Jorge Dorado, professor of paleontology, took his students on a “two day field trip to study the paleontology of the Tolima region.” On this dark, rainy afternoon, while they were visiting Armero, the students saw “the billowing cloud of ash and steam that exploded from the volcano” and the rain mingling with the ash. The students reveled in witnessing “science in action” and “skipped through the wet streets of the town, letting the dirty rain soil their clothes and their outstretched palms.” Among the students was Jorge Estrada, who had been involved in the production of the hazard map. While Professor Dorado did not believe there would be any danger from the volcano, Estrada appeared to Professor Muñoz to be anxious. Professor Muñoz later juxtaposed his memory of Estrada’s evident anxiety with his memory of the shroud of muddy brown Estrada had penciled over Armero during the creation of the hazard map (Bruce, 2001, p. 16–17). Many of those on this field trip perished in the later onslaught of the fast-moving lahars.
November 13, 1985, 9:30pm
Mayor Rodríguez addressed the citizens of Armero over the radio and instructed them not to worry, that, if the situation were desperate, they would receive a warning from the government. The radio announcer then advised the listeners that “if the ash starts to fall again . . . use a wet handkerchief over your face and avoid breathing the polluted air” (Bruce, 2001, p. 62). While the city officials were waiting for the government to issue an evacuation order if the need arose, their primary concern was, in the meantime, preventing the citizenry from panicking.
November 13, 1985, 10:30pm
The icecaps on the Nevado del Ruiz had been steadily melting due to the intense heat of the eruption. At 10:30pm, the lahars swooped down on the village of Chinchiná, a village 15 miles west of the volcano, swallowing up over 1,000 of its citizens (Bruce, 2001, p. 62). This village was on the opposite side of the volcano from Armero, and Armero was 55 miles east from the volcano’s summit. The lahars were moving fast, at a steady “30 kilometers per hour, picking up everything in their path, including trees and vehicles, as well as sediment and water from the rivers whose paths they followed,” and Armero stood in its wake (Augliere, 2016).
November 13, 1985, 10:45pm
The Civil Defense Office issued an order to evacuate Armero, but the town had lost its electricity, and the order could not be relayed to the public via radio. Although “it would have taken only 10 minutes to reach high ground on foot,” the majority of the public remained in ignorance of the order, not the least part because “it was close to midnight [and] a large part of the population was presumably asleep.” (Sullivan, 1986). At 10:45pm, Armero’s fire department learned of the order to evacuate and tried to alert the public by going through the town blowing whistles and knocking on doors. However, many of the people the firemen warned chose not to leave, either because they did not believe there was a danger or they did not know where to go. Also, some did not wish to leave because they had been reassured by the local priests that “there was nothing to fear” (Bruce, 2001, p. 63).
November 13, 1985, 10:50pm
Five minutes later, “the force of the mud avalanche from Nevado del Ruiz” as well as the rock and ash from the eruption caused the dam of the Lagunilla river to break. The river, in its turn, began to flood the town of Armero (Graham, 1985). During this time, Mayor Rodríguez was broadcasting on his ham radio, discussing the situation with a Civil Defense member in Ibagué. The Civil Defense member recalled how Rodríguez “wanted it all to be over, and he wanted to be with his family, who remained in their Armero home” (Bruce, 2001, p. 64). While they continued their conversation over the radio, Rodríguez suddenly shouted his last words, “Wait a minute. I think the town is getting flooded.” (Russell et al, 1985). The lahars had reached Armero. Survivors later described that the mud came in two waves: one they described as “ice cold, like the mountain snows that spawned it” and the second with “the inner fire of Nevado del Ruiz, until finally the cascade was smoking hot” (Russell et al, 1985).
One of the geology students on the field trip who survived, Juan José Restrepo, remembered the lahars engulfing the town of Armero:
The mud appeared from the rear of the hotel like a wall of black foam coming out of the darkness. Since the building was made of cement, I thought that it would resist, but it was coming in such an overwhelming way, like a wall of tractors, razing the city, razing everything. (Bruce, 2001, 64)
The night was dark and the confusion of people frantically trying to escape the hold of the warm mud was exacerbated by continuous rain. The mud, along with debris, covered the town, engulfing everything in its path. Those who survived had difficulty determining if those around them were alive or dead and just being moved by the mud (Bruce, 2001, p. 65).
The Events after the Eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz
It took time for government officials to realize the extent of the death and damage caused by the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz. One of the first people to view the devastation was Fernando Rivera, a pilot of a crop-duster plane. He flew over the area and related to officials how he had seen survivors “clinging to trees they had climbed [and] on roofs that weren’t reached by the mud, and . . . in a cemetery that had a cement wall around it that the mud did not knock down . . . They were waving to passing aircraft for help.” The surreal horror of the aftermath of the tragedy was described by one of the first reporters of the event as “Dantesque . . . like the end of the world, just a gigantic beach.” (“Town Survivors,” 1985).
The death and destruction of Armero was extensive, and responders were faced with an overwhelming task. They found a scene littered with “thousands of bodies . . . buried in the sludge” and often could only locate them by the “pools of blood on the surface.” The survivors the responders came in contact with were “exhausted . . . lay[ing] on the surface of the mud in shallows, or stagger[ing] along in shock on drier ground . . . [and some] were naked . . . their garments had been torn from them by the swift-moving lahar.” (Russell et al, 1985). Some of the victims of the tragedy only survived a short while because the responders did not have the skill or tools necessary to extricate them from their encasement in the mud and debris. A well-publicized example was Omayra Sanchez, a 13 year old girl, who was trapped in the mud and caught under the roof of the family house (“Omayra Sanchez”). Responders found her “up to her neck in ooze” and were unable to free her. She was also caught in the grip of her aunt who had died and continued to hold onto her “even after rigor mortis had set in.” The responders continued to “work fruitlessly for 60 hours” to try to free her, but she eventually died from either a heart attack or hypothermia (Russell et al, 1985). On November 18, 1985, the government of Colombia declared that the town of Armero would be transformed into a national cemetery because it was “impossible to remove the heavy mud blanket that enveloped the town” and all of the bodies (Lernoux, 1985).
In addition to the tragic loss of human life, the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz caused an immense amount of destruction to infrastructure, including governmental, commercial, and personal property. Barry Voight explained that “all roads, bridges, telephone lines, power grids and aqueducts, were damaged or destroyed.” He also pointed out that extensive damage was done to the area’s agricultural community. Furthermore, such important structures as schools and hospitals, homes and industrial plants were vastly destroyed, with the entire cost of the disaster “exceeding a billion dollars” (1990, p. 351).
In the weeks after the disaster, the citizens of Colombia began to place responsibility for the tragedy squarely on the government’s shoulders. During a funeral held for the victims of the Armero tragedy, a banner was clearly displayed, waving defiantly, which read “The Volcano Didn’t Kill 22,000 People, The Government Killed Them” (Montalbano, 1985). Moreover, the citizens of Armero remembered how, before the eruption, Mayor Rodríguez had fought tirelessly to persuade the government to drain the dam. Alexander Torres, the son of a former mayor of Armero who also noticed the danger posed by the dam and “perished in the disaster,” spoke out in response to the outpouring of donations from charities after the tragedy: “When we needed the money to drain the dam, no one gave it” (Graham, 1985).
The public outrage against the government was not only due to the fact that it failed to prevent the tragedy, but also because the government lacked the necessary tools to respond properly. While it was understood that Colombia’s shaky economy could not afford top-rate tools like “thermal imaging and sonar equipment to search for people buried in the mud,” the rescuers were not even provided with the basic necessities for pulling the victims to safety, “such as water pumps, cutting instruments and wooden planks to help people move across the mud.” Another reason the government was handed the blame was that it had implemented limits on imports which prevented organizations such as the Colombian Red Cross from procuring necessary equipment for their relief efforts. Furthermore, in response to disasters of this magnitude, most governments deploy soldiers to assist with rescue missions; however, in the case of Armero, the number of soldiers sent was relatively small. When interviewers asked Defense Minister General Miguel Vega Uribe why he did not send in more soldiers to help, he replied, “My job was not to put people in there but to get them out. I didn’t want my own people to sink” (Graham, 1985).
While the public was casting blame in the government’s direction, many members of government responded by diverting this blame toward other politicians. Less than a month after the tragedy, Tolima’s provincial legislature was “demanding the resignation of Governor Eduardo Alzate Garcia.” Garcia was the governor who refused to listen to Mayor Rodríguez’ warnings and did not attend the meeting in which the hazard map was distributed. In addition, speculations were made that “President Belisario Betancur [would] soon name new ministers of mines and public works” since these politicians had declared in a testimony before Colombia’s Congress not long before the tragedy “that the government was aware of the risk from the volcano and was acting to protect the population” (Montalbano, 1985). Indeed, President Belisario Bentacur Cuartas, himself, was not immune from the repercussions of the disaster. Just the following year, in August, when he was running for reelection, Bentacur would lose to his Liberal opponent, Virgilio Barco Vargas (“Colombia”).
While the Armero tragedy brought with it death and destruction, it carried with it a signpost for continued research. The destruction caused by the Nevado del Ruiz produced an urgency in the scientific community to work harder toward finding a way to more accurately predict volcanic eruptions, a task that is still challenging scientists today.
Teaching Notes for Use with the Armero Tragedy Case Study
1) What were some of the challenges the government of Colombia faced when trying to decide the time to evacuate Armero?
a) How were the challenges different between the local and state governments?
b) What events caused the government to stall in issuing an evacuation?
c) What events spurred them on in issuing an evacuation?
d) Can governments learn what steps to take in dealing with disasters from the disasters other countries have faced? What could be the consequences should these situations end up having dissimilar results such as the comparison between La Soufrière and the Nevado del Ruiz?
2) How did the scientific community impact the government’s decisions?
a) Were the scientific community and the Colombian government at odds?
b) What did each type of scientist contribute to the government’s perspective of the impending disaster? The Colombian scientists? The international scientists? The amateurs and experts?
c) What factors hampered the early detection of the volcanic eruption by the scientific community of Colombia?
3) How can a government come to grips with a disaster that is likely to happen but is virtually unpredictable?
a) What can the local, the state, the federal, the international governments bring to the table in this type of situation?
b) How do non-governmental organizations fit in to this picture?
4) What can community leaders do when governmental unrest, such as the guerrilla M-19 takeover of the Palace of Justice, coincides with an escalating crisis?
a) Do local governments have the power and resources to deal with this type of challenge?
b) How can the international community better assist during such a crisis?
c) Does anyone outside of the situation have an ethical, moral, or natural duty to step in and intervene?
5) When a local government is at odds with the state government in how to deal with a crisis, does the local government have the right to do what it thinks is best?
a) Should Mayor Rodríguez have issued an evacuation without the Colombian government’s approval?
b) In such a case, what challenges would Mayor Rodríguez have faced?
c) What consequences would Mayor Rodríguez have had to endure if he had called an evacuation before the Colombian government issued the order and the volcano failed to affect Armero?
d) Would these consequences have been different if he had called an early evacuation and the volcano did destroy Armero?
6) What challenges do poor communities face in regards to natural disasters which wealthier communities do not?
a) Can you think of any way these differences can be ameliorated?
b) Can the international community do anything to help or would the international community actually make the situation worse?
c) Why are wealthier communities often better prepared for disasters?
7) What are some reasons towns are built in areas that are prone to disasters?
a) What about areas that are prone to volcanic eruptions?
b) What about areas that are prone to hurricanes?
c) What about areas that are prone to earthquakes?
d) Is there anything that governments should do to limit the construction of communities in these areas or would doing so be counterproductive? Would limiting the construction of communities in hazardous areas be limiting the rights of the citizens?
8) What factors prevented the people of Armero from constructing an evacuation plan before the tragedy occurred?
a) Are there ways to encourage towns that are resistant to change to develop plans for dealing with potential disasters?
b) How can towns with limited resources prepare for disasters?
c) Do rural towns find it more difficult to prepare for disasters than urban towns? What are the advantages of urban towns in comparison to rural towns in preparing for disasters? Do rural towns have any advantages over urban towns when preparing for disasters?
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