The Nevado del Ruiz volcano emits a cloud of ash in Murillo, Tolima Department, Colombia on April 7, 2023. - Colombian authorities informed last week that seismic activity had increased at Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which killed 25,000 people in an eruption 38 years ago, warning of a "probable" new outbreak.
Colombian residents must decide whether to leave their homes and livelihoods or risk a volcanic explosion in the coming weeks.
One of Colombia's tallest volcanoes, the Nevado del Ruiz, is located in a heavily populated agricultural region and is notable for killing thousands of people in a catastrophic eruption in 1985.
Preparing for an Impending Disaster
The volcano has had an orange warning since the end of March, which means "an eruption is likely within days or weeks," as the Colombian Geological Service reported.
According to CNN, authorities on both the municipal and national levels have declared an emergency and ordered the evacuation of all communities in the immediate vicinity of the mountain. Most surrounding schools have reverted to pandemic-era homeschooling methods, and local governments are amassing emergency supplies.
In anticipation of possible lava flows, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, on April 5, ordered the voluntary evacuation of roughly 2,500 residents in the region. However, many locals have resisted, citing concerns about losing their jobs and property.
It is unknown how many households have fled. So far, on Thursday, April 13, the head of Tolima's civil protection unit, Luis Fernando Velez, told the local daily El Tiempo that only 87 individuals had evacuated under his agencies' control.
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Defiance of a Mandatory Evacuation
Farmers in the central Colombian provinces of Tolima and Caldas fear they would go bankrupt if they were forced to abandon their livestock on the rich slopes of the Nevado del Ruiz.
Tolima's provincial administration has indicated that it would remove up to 12,000 cattle from the region out of a total population of around 43,000.
Farmers are fighting the evacuation order, according to Tolima's rural development secretary and officer in charge of the cattle evacuation, Omar Valdes. Farmers are reluctant to leave their land because of negative experiences in the past.
Historically, when the farmers returned from previous evacuations, they found that most of their goods and cattle had been stolen. Valdes told CNN that this happened even if the floods created by the volcano had not yet reached their properties.
Scientists from the Smithsonian Institute's Global Volcanism Program warn that eruptions from the Ruiz volcano can be especially dangerous since the summit is always covered in snow and ice. The snow and ice would rapidly melt upon coming into touch with the lava, causing massive mudslides known as lahars to cascade down the mountain's sides.
On Orange Alert
In a featured report by The New York Post, a swarm of earthquakes had escalated to levels not seen since the 1980s, when an eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano killed at least 25,000 people.
The government has issued a level orange alert, the second highest possible.
Reportedly, the increased ash emissions were likely caused by the flow of subterranean fluid.
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