Moving Mountains
tierra movida
The Nevado del Ruiz is a glacier-capped volcano that stands at 5270m at around 200km west of Colombian capital, Bogotá, between adjacent political departments, Caldas and Tolima. It is one of a chain of volcanos that runs along a cordillera formed by the subduction of the oceanic Nazca plate beneath the continental plate of South America. Written records beginning in the sixteenth century document four eruptive episodes prior to 1985 (1595, 1828-29, 1832-3, and 1845). At least ten major eruptions are thought to have occurred over the past ten millennia.
Once again, in November 1984, the Nevado del Ruiz volcano slowly awoke from 140 years of rest. For a year, it spurted gas and ash, and caused minor earthquakes in its immediate surroundings. The mountain's rumblings attracted the attention of engineers from a local power station, the Central Hidro-Electrica de Caldas (CHEC) who, in turn, contacted Colombia’s national geological survey, the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Geológico-Mineras (INGEOMINAS). Along with the United Nations Disaster Relief Co-Ordinator (UNDRO) and other foreign agencies, CHEC and INGEOMINAS produced hazard maps and drafted evacuation plans. Their efforts to calculate and convey the risks of an imminent eruption were met with bureaucratic obstacles and indifference in the capital.
On the afternoon of November 13th, 1985, the volcano erupted twice. The lahars that descended through the volcanic valleys accumulated mud, stone, trees, shrubs, and ice. They were engorged by waters from a glacial reservoir that had formed behind a natural dam created in recent earthquakes. Amassing 350 million cubic meters, the debris flow travelled some 45km at speeds of 100km an hour to engulf the town of Armero shortly before midnight. It took the lives of some 25,000 residents.
Today, the town sits in ruins and attracts hundreds of visitors each year, although survivors have lamented the state’s disinterest in preserving the site as a place of tangible national heritage. There exist dozens of memoirs and commemorations of the Armero tragedy, as the disaster has come to be known. In the past three decades, Armero has become the subject matter of major feature-length films, documentaries, radio productions, autobiographies, works of fiction, journalistic chronicles and artistic installations.
This large number of disaster narratives is due, in part, to the warning signs that were ignored by the state, in part to the enormous number of lives that the eruption claimed, and, in part, to its occurrence less than a week after the siege of the Colombian Palace of Justice. On November 6th, 1985, the armed group M-19 took a group of hostages in the Palace, which was subsequently bombarded by the military. The official count of fatalities is 95, although this does not account for nine canteen workers who were reported to be in the courts at the time of the attack, and whose remains have not been located.
The remains of some buildings still stand in Armero. They are covered in thick foliage and dense vegetation, nourished by...
Read more about the Living Ruins »
The Parque Temático Omaira Sánchez was inaugurated in nearby town Armero Guayabal by former president Juan Manuel Santos in 2015....
Read more about the Omaira Sánchez Memorial Centre »
The Nevado del Ruiz is one of over a dozen active volcanoes in Colombian territory. Since its reactivation in 1984,...
Read more about the Nevado del Ruiz »
Scattered around the Armero site, there are gravestones and memorials. Some families of the deceased have attempted to locate the...
Read more about the Graves and Memorials »
Aged 13, Omaira Sánchez captured the world’s attention as she became the face of the Armero tragedy. Over the course...
Read more about the Omaira Sánchez »
I visited Armero on a sunny weekday in March 2017, accompanied by two friends and their dog, Sacha. We were...
Read more about the Disaster Tourism »
On the first anniversary of the disaster, Pope John Paul II visited Armero to consecrate the site. It was the...
Read more about the The Philosopher’s Stone »
This bolder sits where a police station once stood. Weighing 200 tonnes, it originated from the heights of the Nevado...
Read more about the The Killer Stone »
