Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz recorded an incredible 6,000 earthquakes per day last week, prompting officials to raise the alert to the second largest and evacuate more than 2,500 families from the area.
About 57,000 people live in the volcano’s danger zone, which is spread across parts of six provinces, according to the Colombian Geological Survey (CGS).
The volcano’s 1985 eruption killed more than 25,000 people, the fourth deadliest volcanic eruption in human history, leaving people buried under avalanches of earth and rock fragments.
Nevado del Ruiz straddles the border between Tolima and Caldas provinces in Colombia.
It is a stratovolcano composed of many layers of lava alternating between hardened volcanic ash and rocks. On November 13, 1985, Nevado del Ruiz spewed hot ash and lava about 80,000 feet into the atmosphere, Earth Magazine reports. The eruption was not considered large, but the heat released during the event, covering the glacier around the volcano, released the deadly mudflow on the villages below.
President Gustavo Petro requested that the evacuations move faster. However, some residents said they do not intend to leave their homes.
„Don’t scare me because it’s already exploded“said Evelio Ortiz, a potato farmer who survived the 1985 eruption with his wife and five children. ‘What was going to erode, eroded.’
Before last week’s activity, officials said there had been an average of 50 earthquakes per day, with minor events over the past 10 years.
The CGS reported that increased seismic activity was first observed last month, with 6,500 earthquakes on March 28 to 11,000 earthquakes on March 29.
The government raised the volcano’s alert level from yellow to orange last week in preparation for an eruption in the coming days or weeks.
„We support the decision of the local committees to evacuate some people“, said the interim director of the national disaster unit, Luis Fernando Velasco, after a meeting on Monday evening with national and local authorities.
„It is likely that we will need to evacuate additional people in the coming days”.
Caldas Governor Luis Carlos Velasquez has asked the national government for 800 million pesos (about $173,800) to strengthen an early warning system and 400 million pesos for equipment and funding for evacuee housing, the government said in a statement. announced on Monday.
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