Up on the summit, the glacier was completely yellow color and sometimes lemon. It was hard to walk it because it was bristling with needles snow a meter high, carved by the heat of the crater carved by the wind. From the heights of the Bureau of Herveo or Nevado del encomendero Francisco Ruiz, as known from the colonial times this fiery mountain that the Indians called Cumanday, the golden summit of some stratocumulus looked and, far below, the lights of the Caldas villages. A few kilometers above us, the huge plume of steam and sulphurous anhydride was diluted in the stratosphere. We had climbed all day. It was 6:00 pm on July 31, 1985, and as we were four degrees north of Ecuador had 45 minutes of sunlight in November: precious time when one is in the mountains. A twilight wind tore us shop hands like a balloon, before we could even finish anchor. Exhausted and dizzy, we did not know if the headache that accompanied us was the altitude or the smell of sulfur. We had given adequate time for acclimatization in our camp at 4,500 meters high in the sand, and had drunk gallons of water, such as send the manuals. But we breathed all day while we were climbing the pestilence that South Glacier Glacier or the Nereids. Six months ago we had ventured for the first time in those territories. We did not know that just before Christmas, on December 22, 1984, an explosion of smoke green lemon and orange sparks on the Nevado del Ruiz had preceded a large forest fire. Neither knew that the peasants had seen the death of fish in the Otún, Recio and Lagunillas, poisoned with sulfur in the same month as 145 years earlier, according to historical reports had happened. Devoid of prudence, I decided at that July with two companions Sergio Fajardo and Miguel Vidales- to climb the South Mountain glacier and see again the spectacle of the fumarole and the effects of the eruption. With several companions had climbed Nevado del Tolima, a much younger geologically the volcano suffered Herveo table. We had reared several times a tiny crater, a narrow vertical ice gorge 40 meters deep that hides the real fireplace. Lie down there for 35 years and Hermann Lozano Jaime Gonzalez 'Samurai', those who dared to seek the center door of the Earth and died from breathing sulfur dioxide. We had also been peering into the sandy summit Puracé and two rings of ice huge crater of Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano. And we had traveled Swan lunar deserts and volcanic Gargoyles Olleta and the incipient forest background of Quindio. We knew what she looks like a dead volcano and certainly what it looks like one asleep.We had crossed a couple of times the black solfatara serving abrupt entrance to Glacier Nevado del Tolima and is known as Ear, and now we'd just peek into the soup bubbling mud crater width Arenas del Ruiz. And certainly the aspect of blue, yellow and ocher spots seething between ice and loose sands was a demon awakening: completely unlike anything we had seen in a short life of mountaineering. In this second escalation of Ruiz in 1985, the difference in the amount of emission of sulfur was abysmal. The next day we went down downcast and circumspect, stinking demon and full of yellowish mud from his boots to his eyes and from the rope to the bags sleeping, going through the middle. Sergio Fajardo said: "If this mountain reaches even cleared his throat, is going to take ahead to Manizales and Mariquita." Were missing exactly 105 days to the cascade of ice blocks became 100 million cubic meters of mud thrown on Armero, 100 kilometers per hour. This wave full of incandescent rocks swept away everything found in the 25 km valley between Armero, Cambao and Ambalema. As he had done in 1592, 1700 and 1845, and as it will do so again, following its inexorable vital pulse, in 2095 and 2235. The glacier, which today has 11 square kilometers and 400 million cubic meters of ice, hangs over us to 5,300 meters. Despite the thaw caused by the eruption and global warming, this sword of Damocles still points to some five million people and twenty cities in the Midwest. In February of that same year, one of the deans of climbing Colombia, the Swiss mountaineer Antoine Faber, Ruiz had climbed as a geologist, sent by the Ingeominas. Faber, specializing in oil exploration, was not an expert in volcanism, and when he tried to descend, gases prevented. He judiciously description of the state of the crater, from which, according to him, could not conclude anything, because I was not against which to compare it . From this observation, and according to his fellow geologists Darío Mosquera and Alberto Nunez, recommended to all officers of State and non - State Hydroelectric Caldas, the Inderena, Inravisión, the army and even the Incora keep daily volcanic events and conduct research on the history of volcanic emissions in the region to measure risks. Ingeominas conceptualized the activity of the volcano was normal and that therefore there was no immediate danger. Perhaps he forgot that the normal activity of a volcano is erupting.56 million pesos were called for a network of seismological observation, and in August the reports were increasingly alarming. On September 11 there was a new eruption of gases, water vapor and rain sand on neighboring municipalities. In the archives of Ingeominas rests a report by Colonel Joaquin Acosta, published by the Academy of Paris in 1849, in which he describes the eruption and subsequent lahar del Ruiz by the Lagunillas river in 1845, and that seems written 20 years ago. Reported Acosta that the mud covered 16 square kilometers and killed 1,000 people, mostly farmers snuff in the region of Ambalema. Based on the memory of Acosta, engineer, lawyer and academic Colombian Ramón Azuola Guerra wrote in 1882 a report made from excavations in the area where it was to establish Armero. War Azuola concluded that lahars are periodic and repeated with an exact interval.Still, they founded the prosperous agricultural town across the mouth of the canyon of Lagunillas valley. According to these documents, the historian and tolimense musicologist Hector Fabio Gonzalez wrote an article to explain that according to the observations of scientists, eruptions Ruiz and resulting mud lahar occurred with alternating intervals of 140 years and nine months and 110 years and two months. The only one who was the small newspaper published the Law of Ibague, on 18 October 1985. There are estimated according to the geologic timescale, the new eruption would take place in the second week of November 1985 and the eruptions were just a small appetizer, a little history of what would ensue. González sent his article to the editorial offices of several national newspapers. Enrique Santos Calderon, then Sunday editor of El Tiempo, saw him at his desk two weeks before the eruption and set it aside for demented. Santos published article five days after the disaster, with a brief note of regret and bewilderment. Another prophet of the editors of the newspapers was the agronomist and aviator amateur Guillermo Cajiao, who had by then 10 years flying over the craters of volcanoes the Central Cordillera. Cajiao observed the first signs of revival of Ruiz in 1977 and had seen its evolution and wanted to warn the obvious danger. But whenever he appeared for a newspaper with photographs in hand, journalists fled from him as a pariah. "Here comes the mad volcanoes" they said. It was through Cajiao and writer Gustavo Alvarez Ruiz Gardeazábal that reached the ears of the famous volcanologist Haroun Tazieff. Gradually, the attention of scientists the world was turning toward Ruiz. They foresaw that in case of fall of incandescent material on glaciers, 10 percent of the mass of ice could thaw and flow, and that the possibility of an eruption was around 100 percent. The Ministry of Mines requested advice to office of Disaster Assistance UN (UNDRO). By return mail, the Colombian government received the latest version of the Manual Volcanic Emergency Management, which highlights some seemingly obvious, is that people should not bebuilt on the passage of lahars. But in Colombia, as in many parts of the world, there are four departmental capitals (Pasto, Popayan, Ibague and Manizales) and at least 20 large municipalities in that situation. So the only chance to save people exposed to a catastrophe of this caliber is evacuated. But the manual warned that politicians used to be the biggest obstacle because evacuations are unpopular and subtract votes. In Armero did not work alarms, no understanding between the Mayor and the Governor, nor was there an order to evacuate until when detected the eruption a few hours before the lahar. Not far less mass communication suitable for the population. Many officials will not hear the final warning of Ingeominas, that in the week warned of disaster if the mudflow eruption was imminent. However, there was a hero: the mayor of Armero, Ramon Rodriguez. And a politician who met through andthrough its responsibility. The caldense Congressman Hernando Arango Wallet Ramon Antonio 'Moncho' Rodriguez was until the last moment of his life convinced that had to evacuate the population. He complained that the impoundment of water from the El Tiller was the responsibility of the neighboring municipality of Lebanon, but that Armero would put the dead. On the occasion of the small eruption occurred in September and several rains of sand and volcanic ash that covered the roofs of Armero in those weeks, 'Moncho' harassed the governor of Tolima, Eduardo Garcia Alzate, to support him and give the order evacuation. According to testimonies collected by several journalists of the time, the governor ended up rejecting his perennial litany of evacuation. The last time we spoke, he told the journalist Germán Santamaria, 'Moncho' warned that Armero would develop-apparently under the waters of the dam of El Tiller or snowmelt caused by the eruption. Garcia Alzate received the sentence with a laugh and never again see you. In Bogota, meanwhile, the representative to the Humberto Chamber Arango Wallet cited the September 24, 1985 four ministers of the government of Belisario Betancur and warned them of the impending eruption Nevado del Ruiz volcano. "I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but the phenomena that are happening will take us longer to omens but the catastrophe itself. There threatened 16 departments and three million people. Do not say that the State was not warned to comply with its functions in time. " ministers, with the unmistakable gesture of one who is wasting time in front of a guy who just wanted to win cabinet policy, answered a questionnaire on preventive measures and claimed that" not guilty "in foresight to handle the situation. the indifferent attitude and little aware of the Minister of Mines, the Governor of Tolima, the Minister of Works and the Presidency against scientific forcefulness merely confirmed the warning of the UN Handbook on who are the politicians the greatest risk in case of eruption . on the night of November 13, after a very difficult three - hour meeting in Ibague, experts of the Red Cross and entities Tolima department recommended to the evacuation order. At 9:30, officials alert network established by Ingeominas between the guards and operators relay antennas located at 4,000 meters high near the moor Letters reported the onset of rash. That night, Governor Garcia Alzate refused to pass the phone to the mayor of Armero. They say he was playing billiards. 'Moncho' Rodriguez was amateur and was connected with other amateur radio Ibagué that night. At 11:30 a roar of 1,000 trains invaded Armero, along with the explosion of the power plant. The last thing he said 'Moncho' was: " Wait a minute This is flooding.". Despite all the scientific evidence, the government not only did nothing to advance an evacuation, but was acquitted in three instances in nearly a thousand claims 80,000 million pesos rose against him . In 1991, he absolved the High Court of Tolima; in 1994, the State Council, and more recently the Supreme Court. The judgment of the three instances prayed the same thing. That the events of nature are impossible to prevent and to control and which can not be fault them responsibility officials for these facts the volcanic tragedy that destroyed Armero and part of Chinchiná was the second in severity in the twentieth century after the Mount Pelee in 1904, with 30,000 deaths, and one of the largest in history with the eruption of Krakatoa in 1893, the Mount St. Helena and, of course the Vesuvius. Indications allowed foresee the tragedy almost approximation hours. But few wanted to hear the strength of scientific and historical data. Eight days after the disaster went down to Armero for the first time in my life. I stumbled upon the 'valancheros', those human rats that scoured the mud to boot watches and gold teeth of corpses, as Nazi criminals, and I became one of them. A 'valanchero' culture. I made dozens of reports and interviews. For months I nose the smell of rotten mud with sulfur and body, and I got used to see in the few streets that remained standing bare skulls and faces terrified of some of my 22,000 compatriots who died there while the Governor of Tolima playing pool and its mayor died in his command. It was the least I could do after having been up there, climbing over frozen water that was going to fall over. I never saw to climb Ruiz. I returned later to leave my father 's ashes in La Olleta, its subsidiary crater, and often climbed the Tolima, as noble as dangerous. After seeing the risk maps Ingeominas, naively exclude Manizales zone risk of explosion Ruiz, and the southern neighborhoods of Ibague growing soldiered Combeima, 25 kilometers straight Crater Tolima, I can not but recall another historical chronicle that tells how the Combeima brought a lahar in 1793 and how Fray Pedro Simon told the noise was heard "throughout the kingdom , " in March 1592, when Ruiz exploded once again . Each volcanic explosion is simply a pulse over planet Earth, a heartbeat so slowly that simply we fail to perceive or half adrop in the course of a short and simple life. The next pulse is running. It's been 25 years only 85 missing.
http://blogs.elespectador.com/coyuntura_internacional/2010/11/14/armero-una-tragedia-colombiana-en-replica-permanente/
http://blogs.elespectador.com/coyuntura_internacional/2010/11/14/armero-una-tragedia-colombiana-en-replica-permanente/
ARMERO, NEGLECT AND ISOLATION. A COLOMBIAN TRAGEDY IN PERMANENT REPLY.
By: Renny Rueda Castañeda
I watchfulness to find good friends. Hit with a penalty that destroys ... often expressed: we would have preferred to have died with our families and not live in the indifference of a hell that has lasted a quarter century.
Jorge Ramón Uribe. SJ (1)
In late 1984, for the first time in many years, seismic activity Ruiz volcano began to denote a clearly abnormal agitation.On December 22, the monitoring station of the Geophysical Institute of the Andes, assigned to the Javeriana University, recorded from Bogota what would be the first scientific studies of the volcano, revealing on seismograms abnormal trends still quiet, hatched which would the worst natural tragedy that there is record in the history of Colombia.
Throughout the year 1985, there were both the national government, as research teams and experts, uncoordinated warnings that served as an argument to justify, from various political sectors, the existence of escazas conditions of preparation against a possible explosion . Among the different calls, they highlight research studies expert Marta Calvache, and Prof. Eduardo Parra, addressed to President Betancourt, whose findings were reported in the media.Although clearly describe the risk map of Armero, and relate Ignored bibliographical sources lethality of the volcano, the studies were not taken into account, and passed, along with other reprimands, to oblivion. To date events also lacked only Armero emergency frequency, which in the midst of tragedy, meant disjointed and inefficient communication efforts of civil defense, the armed forces, the departmental administration and the Red Cross.
In June of that same year, Juan Duarte, attached to the Geophysics Institute investigator, is ordered to recruit and organize a group of experts who would be responsible for monitoring the behavior of the volcano. The financial resources of the mission was scarce and necessary involve both material personal use of members of the group as contributions Hydroelectric Caldas - CHEC- and Geological Services. The main objective was to set up a network of five stations seismological record, whose first four were located in the vicinity of the snow, and whose fifth, would be located in the area known as "El Billar" along the crater Arenas, the area most dangerous for registration activities.
(2) Canyon Rio Lagunilla
The fateful November 13, while much of the country was interested in the sporting outcome between Millonarios and Cali, the monitoring team, consisting of Duarte, engineer Bernardo Salazar, Fernando Gil and a collaborator, knowledgeable about the area, report the completion of the installation of monitoring instruments and begin to evaluate the records of seismographs manuals. In the environment, despite the efforts in achieving technological support to facilitate the work of gathering information, was the bad taste to know that there were sufficient resources in the event of a catastrophe that would co-ordinate measures relevant evacuation from the base camp mayor of the municipality.Paradoxically, in the midst of tragedy the biggest support telecommunications which featured the mayor, it due to the spontaneous actions of amateur radio in Armero and Bogota, and much of the information being handled in the disaster area, was due to a successful but insufficient report issued by an occasional newsletter, broadcast by Caracol and RCN, in which Sergeant Major of the Red Cross Atiliano Salgado Moreno, amid the sport transmission warned the need to take urgent measures that would save the life of the residents of the periphery of snow.
In the first round held near the Rio Gualí, experts checked oddly what came to be the preamble of the explosion. At 3 pm, the slope of the volcano emitted detonations anticipating abnormal overflow of it. With concern, throughout the afternoon in different shifts, the team with emerging communication systems, begins seismic transmission, with warnings to radio operators in Manizales, which reported despairingly from the base of the snow, the eruption was about to start.At that time, despite the situation, there was no means of socializing the seriousness of the facts with the mayor of Armero, who despite their concern, ignored unable to be informed, development and magnitude of the avalanche. At 9.29 pm, the volcano emits a loud explosion, illuminating the vicinity despite the heavy fog around him. Eight minutes later, and at the interruption of communications and the imminent possibility of being killed, the group run over race, amid stones and ashes, take the road to Manizales, informing the public, amid the accelerated eviction, the need to be located in safe, distant the causes of Chinchina and Rio Claro rivers areas.
Throughout the afternoon, the mayor of Armero, Ramon Rodriguez, aware of the seriousness of the situation, sent a commission to verify the state of Rio Lagunilla, that connected with the snowy Armero. Additionally he requested vehemently communicate with the Governor of Tolima, Eduardo Garcia Alzate, for the eviction of the town of Armero was authorized, which in turn meant the mobilization of the inhabitants of Lleida, Ambalema, Cambao, Mariquita and Honda. Negligence of the governor, are statements of the secretary of the late mayor, and testimonies of witnesses of the scene, which states that before the desperate orders of the same, both the secretary of the department as governor, laughed, ignoring the threat. With the passing of the hours, the governor took deny calls Rodríguez, sentenced him to die with his people.
The tributary of the Rio Azufrado and Lagunilla, slowly, and for hours, stored more than 200 million cubic meters of mud, volcanic material, river water and snow, and plant remains, that untie formed waves up to thirty meters height, accumulated unevenly along the canyon. At 11.15 pm the mayor reported to emergency officials that the water came abruptly to his home. At 11.28 pm, from Bogota, communication was lost with the efforts of amateur radio in Armero. At the same time Armero sank in a perpetual silence. From 11 hours, completing a journey of 48 kilometers, mud and volcanic debris, they devastated Armero, moving at a speed of over 43 kilometers per hour, blinding the lives of over 22,000 people, and setting in the middle night, between gasps of the inhabitants of the municipality, an overview of mutilated bodies, unidentifiable figures, mud and debris.
Today, the memory of Armero still throbs in the heart of Colombia that despite its progress, baffled by a strange mixture of celebration and indifference announced amid tragedies. What looks like a page deleted, 25 years later it replicated in regions inexplicamente relived every year stories of helplessness, poverty and oblivion. The image Omaira, the thirteen year old girl temporarily become a symbol of hope, and incomprehensible agony amid the desolation, represent not a memory but the hapless denominator of a country in constant reinvention. Apathetic to the unquestionable existence of a population united appearance, but actually fragmented into citizens of different categories, whose value, as in the afternoon of the disaster, is administered at the discretion of governors of the day. The author answers concerns or suggestions in the mail [email protected]
Renny Rueda Castañeda
(1). Compiler, journalist and witness to the tragedy. Investigator.
(2). Images. The volcano and the flood: 13 November 1985 Author: Colombia. Presidency of the Republic. Bogotá.Colombia.
I have not respond, you respond honest men that if they loved their people, the tragedy falls upon the souls of the wicked, forever punished are, by their corruption, greed, ambition, what have I to do with this when the people choose their rulers and chose Barabbas instead of Jesus Christ? Not even tolerated Catholicism to which is the most libertine branch of religions that call themselves Christian, his atheistic communist ideology them was stronger than any fear, I'm not sanctify the priest, he worshiped images, that did not do it very different from the rest but said take my name and only by his fanatical communist atheism was killed with machetes and finished burying him naked, made the worst aberrations only because he said out my name on it do you imagine if it had really been my son? just to name me lynched and today that territory it is home to witches and spiritualists who steal corpses daily and leave debris all over the place, that was then, this is now.
Bogotazo | Long March Toward Communism
https: // granmarchahaciael communism .wordpress.com / category / bogotazo /
April 9. 2015 - Posts about Bogotazo written by granmarchacomunismo. ... Article " http://www.bluradio.com/nacion/problema-del-bronx-no-es-por-consumo-es-por-politica-fallida-antidrogas-experta-106658
The 'curse' that a priest launched on Armero in 1948
Armero tragedy November 13, 1985. Photo: AFP
Learn the story of Father Pedro Maria Ramirez, who had put a curse on Armero in 1948.
By: Writing bluradio
The anthropologist and university professor Leonardo Nieto reported in bluradio one of the lesser known stories surrounding the tragedy of Armero , it is a curse that many attribute to a priest who lived in the region in 1948 called Pedro Maria Ramirez. ( See also: Armero, the prosperous town which ended in ruins and symbolic tombs )
Father Ramirez was assigned to the parish of Armero in the mid-1940s Armero, at that time, was "quite liberal, leftist groups had a strong foothold in Armero and its surroundings" . ( See also: Armero still looking for their missing 30 years after the tragedy )
Leonardo that "the arrival of this father changed the dynamics in the village" , as distinguished people according to their political preference.
This situation generated considerable unease in the population, which became evident after the 'Bogotazo' on April 9, 1948, "in such acomplex political context, Father Pedro Maria Ramirez faced residents of Armero own and it was they who he was murdered".
Account the expert "the population had a negative perception by its conservative nature ", reason why the religious died at thehands of the mob as a martyr .
"In agony the priest threw the phrase: 'No stone will remain unturned Armero', something which many consider as a curse ."
After the death of the priest, the mob stopped to give him grave and buried without clothes. "Then the priest's garb became almost a relic, there are different versions about his whereabouts. Some say that people burned, others that the Army when the area was taken after Bogotazo nuns and others. "
Leonardo also notes that "l will primarily involved in the murder of Father Ramirez , when judicializes, repeatedly asked to be moved because cell said he visited them at night ."
The story, however, does not end there, as they also note that the origin of the curse would be the words of the Bishop of Ibagué at the time .
"After the death of the father, the bishop of Ibagué Armero told state 'Entredicho' , ie another parent was not assigned to the population, nor could celebrate first communions or christenings. This version has the curse could also have been launched by this religious ".
Mysticism surrounding the tragedy foretold that 30 years ago shook Armero, Tolima, as in figures as the father or the girl Ramirez symbol of this fact, Omayra Sanchez, the reality of a country of various shades as Colombia is portrayed.
