FromOlympia, WA The Olympian:
Their Mount Rainier erupted, now Colombians sharing lessons
A contingent from Colombia is visiting Pierce County this week to discuss how to best handle the possibility of Mount Rainier or Mount St. Helens erupting.
The group of scientists, emergency managers and first responders have checked out both Washington volcanoes and will hold a community meeting in Orting Thursday night (May 4).
Both countries have experienced deadly volcano eruptions in the past.
Mount St. Helens erupted in May 1980, killing 57 people and destroying hundreds of homes.
In the Andes Mountains of Colombia, Nevado del Ruiz erupted in 1985 and caused lahars that killed more than 23,000 people, injured more than 5,000 and destroyed 5,000 homes.
Nevado del Ruiz is an ice-clad volcano similar to Mount Rainier, which the U.S. Geological Survey dubbed one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because volcanic mudflows would bury numerous communities in the foothills.
After the Nevado del Ruiz eruption, our US Geological Survey started the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program. From the website:
In response to the tragic 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz Volcano in Colombia, where more than 23,000 people lost their lives, the USGS and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) established the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) to help prevent crises from becoming disasters. Over 30 successful years, VDAP has deployed scientific teams in response to 30 major crises, provided technical assistance with hundreds of additional volcanic events, and strengthened response capacity in 12 countries.
At the request of governments of affected countries, VDAP helps foreign colleagues monitor volcanic activity, assess hazards, generate eruption forecasts, and develop early warning capabilities, which help get people out of harm's way. Experienced teams of VDAP scientists can rapidly respond to developing crises worldwide. VDAP teams collaborate in the background, providing support to international partners who are the responsible parties for hazard communication. Between crises, VDAP scientists work with counterparts to build and improve volcano monitoring systems and to conduct joint activities to reduce volcanic risk and improve understanding of volcanic hazards.
Read more about the 30 years of VDAP on the OFDA website.
Looks like a great program for the big picture.
And, Columbia is not without its share of other disasters - from the Associated Press two days ago:
Desperation sets in as flood death toll in Colombia tops 200
Townspeople desperately searched their ruined homes and the local hospital for loved ones Sunday after a torrent of water, mud and debris swept through a city in southern Colombia, causing more than 200 deaths, many of them children, and leaving hundreds more missing and injured.
Neighborhoods were left strewn with rocks, wooden planks, tree limbs and brown muck after heavy rain caused the three rivers that surround Mocoa to rise up and surge through the city of 40,000 Friday night and early Saturday as people slept. The deluge smashed houses, tore trees out by the roots and washed cars and trucks away.
Search-and-rescue teams combed through the debris and helped people who had been clawing at huge mounds of mud by hand. Many had little left to search.
“People went to their houses and found nothing but the floor,” said Gilma Diaz, a 42-year-old woman from another town who came to search for a cousin.
And of course, the potential had been identified in 1989:
The danger has grown worse in recent years because of deforestation, which eliminates some protection from runoff, and because many people built their homes close to the water. But the triggering event was rainfall of more than 5 inches (130 millimeters) that began late Friday.
“The rain fell on Mocoa with an intensity and force that was without precedent and devastating,” Santos said. “It rained in two hours what falls in a month in Bogota.”
A 1989 hydrology report for the Agricultural Ministry warned that just such a disaster could happen unless steps were taken to reinforce the riverbanks, channel water away from the town and restore some of the forest. It was not immediately clear why those steps had not been taken.
This shit is serious - it can and will kill you in a heartbeat. We had our own example with the Oso landslide of March 22, 2014
Leave a comment