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Published: June 19th 2013
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Armero, a tragedy that has been referred as the second most deadly volcanic eruption of the 20th century Yeah, Armero, a town that was located on the shores of the Lagunillas River; its residents slept that horrible night comforted by the words of their priest on a loudspeaker and their mayor on the local radio. They, I guess, trying to calm the villagers down, told them that there was nothing to fear about, even though the Red Cross had given orders for an evacuation at 7 pm!. And that's how they ignored some of the threats and committed their greatest sin: overlooking the signs of nature, they had to face the consequences of a tragedy that was about to start, yeah that's right, the natives ignored an eruption, which according to reports, was hidden by that night's rain.
It was then two hours after that eruption that the calamity started.
Poor Omayra I believe the world has experienced different feelings when looking at Omayra's photo. My first impression was that of hoplessness, a mix of anger and hate for the people who did not deal with matters appropriately. Although
Armero
A history marked by the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz it is not advisable to always blame someone for different issues, as if this could help, it is also true that with a good follow-up of the previous episodes, the consequences of such a tragedy could have been avoided and we would have been able to rewrite history. Unfortunately, this is not a Harry Potter's book and the real thing was that this poor little girl stayed for two full days and three nights suffering this agonizing ordeal, with her legs trapped by metal.
It has to be said that given her deadly circumstances, she showed the greatest patience and calm to the world, which gave us all the best lesson ever; She was concerned about her studies and she even had time to tell people to go and have a rest. Unfortunately, her little heart was not as brave and did not resist all these emotions and we were witnesses of her eventual death on Nov 16th.
As I have been reading posts on the net, I have noticed that people tend to blame the journalist who took the photo that was printed on newspapers all over the world and also the organisation
that gave this guy a prize. It seems that what I wrote just before is a fact. However, I must say that as sad as the event was, they shouldn't be blamed since it is their job to inform people of what's happening around the world. The journalist was there, and if I am not mistaken, he even gave her psychological support, provided her with conversation, which on a hindsight, it must have been music to her little ears, and being honest, what else could he have done?
We know that there were people there specialised in this kind of tragedies who tried by many means to save Omayra but guess what, unfortunately, not having the right equipment for this was mainly the cause of her death, and that's where the changes need to be made.
This is where we should look at instead, the guilties are there, why didn't that equipment arrive on time if this was a tragedy that was announced a long time before? A question for those people involved in this matter, was it the right move to overlooked those deadly signs? I guess not. Maybe this is just the
right opportunity to entertaing thoughts of changing these cultural paradigms.
What did the world learn? As we know, the whole world was not oblivious to this tragedy and the lesson taken from this, is that lives of people should be taken seriously, the need for proper equipment vital in the management of these tragedies should be prime concern among the governments of third world countries. We could evidence how -as it is common sometimes- other matters that signify loss of power have more importance than a volcanic tragedy, and this is what our government did, they focused their attention on guerrilla's rebels which meant unstability of their institutions and this was a more important threat for them.
In a globalised world, we need to cross those boundaries so that we can get closer and be informed, borrow our expertises, equipment and live as one. Not only should we get concerned with copying reality tv programmes, and the like, we need to use that closeness to worry about our neighbour's problems, and help; that aid might mean the world to the other. It is high time that we did not see other
Only time could tell if people's pain will be eased
I hope the world never forgets the lesson learned from this tragedy and Omaira's calm and faith which is what we need to minimise problems people's matters as their own for the time will come when we will be faced with that same issue and someone can help us.
My feelings when visiting It was such a sad feeling going there and experiencing the solitude and desolation from a place that -although I did not know it personally- I pictured it as surely the favourite venue for its inhabitants who happily called it their city; you sort of wonder how many memories they kept, how much they endeavour to build their homes and finally be called Armero's dwellers. What I can say is that by being there after all these years, the unimaginable pain experienced by its inhabitants is impregnated in all our body and let me tell you that it doesn't go after the visit. It is far too sad as it chases after you.
Searching on the net material about Armero, it was sad to learn that 2 years ago, precisely after 14 years from that awful evening of Nov, 13th, 1985, there were still missing people from the tragedy. They believe that some of those children were adopted and taken to the
US. My prayers go for those parents who do not know anything about their offspring and I hope that by now, they would have actually been able to trace their children, if not seen them, at least known that they are alive and well
An after-comment Finally, I love writing on this blog as this obliges me to search information on the net to complete my writings. I have just learned that we have 5 volcanoes, in our country, that are currently on alert, but which contrary to the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano, do not show much variation in activity: They are the Galeras, Cumbal, Machin, Sotará, and the Nevado del Huila. The one that caused this tragedy was the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano, which is the highest of Colombia's volcanoes. The big thing about these volcanoes is that once, their eruptions melted the ice and they created lahars or muflows, as were described by Restrepo, the Colombian Geology student.
The NR volcano had already caused a series of minor earthquakes and I read that steam eruptions had occurred for 51 weeks before that big calamity. This is one of the
reasons, why a tragedy that caused the loss of 23,000 people as well as one-fifth of the Colombian's Gross National Product, could've been avoided if the government had taken those signs seriously, and yet, we have to recognise that living in a third world country means not having the equipment, expertise required and what is maybe sadder, the importance of life is not taken that seriously sometimes. As it was reported, the Colombian government was informed and advised about what to do, so those worrisome signs were left without monitoring whatsoever.
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