Word: bogotã
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...shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday, and Pilot Manuel Cervero was nearly home. Cervero was flying a DC-8 cargo jet from Miami to the Colombian capital, Bogot??, a sprawling city of 5 million in the Andes. The plane was cruising at 24,000 ft., 110 miles or ten minutes from El Dorado International Airport. Then, without warning, Cervero and his aircraft ran afoul of one of nature's most destructive phenomena...
...left me without visibility. The cockpit filled with smoke and heat and the smell of sulfur." The blast charred the nose of the DC-8 and turned the aircraft's windows white. Flying only on instruments, Cervero diverted the plane to the city of Cali, 20 minutes from Bogot??. Making his final approach, the pilot said, he had to push open one of the cockpit's side windows in order to catch a glimpse of the airport's runway lights. He landed safely...
...eruption came at a particularly bad time for Betancur. In the days before the disaster, he had been under heavy political attack for his Nov. 6 decision to send army troops against M-19 guerrillas who had taken over Bogot??'s Palace of Justice. The spectacular and bloody assault horrified television viewers around the world and left nearly 100 dead, including eleven Colombian Supreme Court Justices...
...news of the cataclysm spread, Colombia was stunned. President Betancur declared the 77 sq. mi. around the volcano a disaster zone. In Bogot??, long lines of blood donors formed outside the local Red Cross building; more than 10,000 pints were collected in less than 24 hours. Residents of the capital streamed to two major collection spots in the city bearing food, blankets, medicine and clothing. By Thursday morning a caravan of 300 trucks carrying thousands of tons of relief material was headed for Tolima department, a five-hour drive over narrow mountain roads...
Amid the frenzy, Colombians were already beginning to ask them-selves if the tragedy could have been averted or at least limited in its scope. In an article headlined A PREDICTED DISASTER, the respected Bogot?? daily El Espectador disclosed on Friday that the Colombian National Institute of Geological-Mining Investigations (INGEOMINAS) had published a report on Oct. 7 warning of the virtual certainty of a disaster. The report singled out Armero and the village of Chinchiná as threatened sites. As early as Sept. 26, INGEOMINAS had recommended the evacuation of towns at the base of the volcano. But the Colombian...