Word: ashe
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...well as the tremors that perennially shake California. But the eruption also bore an eerie similarity to the 1980 detonation of Washington State's Mount St. Helens, which left an estimated 65 people dead and missing. The initial Nevado del Ruiz blast sent steam and millions of tons of ash into the Andean air, but the debris was followed by almost no lava. About 90 minutes after the initial detonation, there was a second. It was so forceful that it shook the air in Cali, 150 miles to the southwest. Said a civil defense worker in that city: "At first...
...treacherous as quicksand. Some exhausted survivors lay on the surface of the mud in shallows, or staggered along in shock on drier ground. Many of the living were naked or only partly clothed; their garments had been torn from them by the swift-moving lahar. All were encrusted with ash-colored goo that quickly hardened under the next morning's sun into a gritty carapace. Many of the survivors had suffered serious injuries. A sepulchral silence reigned over the devastated town...
Despite that rapid and spontaneous outpouring, rescue work at Armero proceeded at a slow and frustrating pace. The torrential mudslides washed away roads and bridges, limiting efforts to deliver both rescuers and relief supplies. Foul weather and the continuing down pour of volcanic ash from the smoking mountain kept Colombian helicopters away from Armero until Thursday afternoon. Only on Friday could the U.S. fly in any of the big CH-47 Chinook helicopters, capable of evacuating dozens of people at a time. In the interim, only nine small helicopters, able to carry just a handful of victims each, had flown...
...cannon rounds like a bombardment, so loud that they could be heard for more than 30 leagues around the base. In the region there were two rivers, the Guali and the La-gunilla . . . both were flooded with melted snow. It didn't really seem like water, but masses of ash and soil, with such a pestilent odor of sulfur that it couldn't be tolerated even from afar...
...perform short-term divination, geologists examine a number of clues. Mild seismic activity in the area, rumblings or the emission of ash and gases are all harbingers of greater things to come. Changes in the snowcaps that cover tall volcanoes may also indicate trouble. In Iceland, for example, the sight of a sagging, snow-covered mountaintop, which indicates that hot magma is pushing upward and melting the ice cap, warns knowledgeable residents to head for safety. More sophisticated techniques include tiltmeters or laser ranging devices to detect deformations in the volcano cone, also caused by magma oozing upward. Seismometers...