Armero

Armero was the second biggest city in Tolima, Colombia that was buried by ash after a nearby volcano erupted, killing about 25,000 people. The Nevado del Ruiz volcano had been dormant for almost 150 years when people began hearing rumbling from the volcano in 1985.

Geologists and other experts had warned authorities and media outlets about the danger up to several weeks and days earlier. When interviewed by reporters, a number of different officials told people that the city was safe and downplayed the possible effects of the natural phenomenon. The mayor of Armero himself, during the night before the explosion, assured citizens that there was nothing to fear.

On the night of November 13, 1985 Nevado del Ruiz erupted, spewing volcanic ash and causing mudslides 104 meters thick. Almost no one in Armero survived the explosion. The city was buried in ash and mud, and remains buried like the city of Pompeii. Footage and photos of Omayra Sánchez, a young victim of the tragedy, were published around the world.

The explosion of the volcano was not the main cause of the dissapearance of Armero. The Lagunilla river had been blocked for more than 2 months, when considerably smaller eruptions of the Arenas volcano had melted part of the Ruiz mountain. As a result, the Lagunilla ended up looking more like a dam than a river.

The night when the volcano exploded, a gigantic ice rock from the top of the mountain fell into the Lagunilla river, creating a huge wave of mud, ashes and water. It is estimated that the wave was traveling at 300 miles per hour as it hit Armero. Traveling through the narrow Lagunilla river, it gained speed and power as it hit the plains of the city of Armero. It took less than 15 minutes from the time of the eruption, to the time when the city was gone.

Gigantic rocks embedded in the bottom of the Lagunilla river were moved from their prehistoric positions and started travelling along with the wave, helping to destroy and kill everything in its path. After the first few hours, a lesser secondary wave caused further damage. The next morning, a plane transmiting to Colombia's Civil Defense system, overflying what was supposed to be Armero, is known to have remarked: "My God, Armero has been erased from the map", "Dios mio, Armero ha sido borrada del mapa".

Shortly after the 1985 eruption VDAP (the Volcano Disaster Assistance program) was set up, a program created to help reduce the number of fatalities and prevent countries from loosing great amounts of money when coping with a volcanic crisis- such as that of Columbia in 1985. Unfortunately no such program existed when Nevado del Ruiz erupted so Columbia suffered greatly after feeling the force of the second biggest eruption in the 20th century. The first services to respond to Armero and take action were the Columbian Red Cross and Civil Defence, organising rescue attempts and medical care. The Columbian Military also played a key role in rescue attempts and medical care as well as providing transport e.g. helicopters, food and shelter for all those affected. Within 24 hours international help arrived in many forms, the efforts of over 30 countries worldwide. This global help arrived mainly for the short term as emergency aid, so that long term help could be provided when all the victims were supplied with shelter, medicine etc and those missing or trapped rescued, the dead identified and buried.

Nevado del Ruiz left 5,000 homes destroyed, residents having to evacuate to other towns in the surrounding area and were eventually housed by the government as the housing crisis lasted years after the explosion. Years later in the 90’s the towns were still coated in ash and debris, this major eruption cost Columbia 7.7 billion to rebuild the lives of thousands left homeless and injured, their lives torn apart.