Word: colombian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many of Armero's residents probably never knew their prosperity was the result of Nevado del Ruiz's last eruption. On Feb. 19, 1845, according to Colombian Historian Rafael Gómez Picón, "subterranean sounds emanated from the upper part of the ... river on the slopes of the snowcapped volcano . . . accompanied by a series of slight quakes. Suddenly, out of the canyon wherein the Lagunilla River flows, an enormous and strange torrent of thick mud became dislodged at tremendous velocity. It dragged with it great blocks of snow, debris, trees and sand." According to Gómez's chronicle, the mudslide...
...just as quickly. Along with the U.S. Army rescue helicopters, Washington's Ambassador to Colombia Charles A. Gillespie released an immediate $25,000 to local authorities. Within 36 hours the first of three U.S. C-130 Hercules transport aircraft flew from Howard Air Force Base in Panama to a Colombian military airport at Palanquero bearing some 500 family-size tents. In Washington, Jay Morris, deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that "we have been working around the clock to monitor and respond to the emergency requirements of the survivors." Administration officials affirmed that the U.S. relief...
Private citizens also rushed to the rescue. Nowhere was the effort more frantic than in Miami and surrounding Dade County, home to an estimated 125,000 Colombian immigrants. Within hours after news of the disaster reached the city, the local Colombian consul general, Roberto García Archila, was swamped with aid offers. Less than 24 hours after the eruption, an Avianca Boeing 727 left Miami International Airport laden with privately donated medical supplies. Meanwhile, Spanish-speaking ham-radio operators in Miami were relaying messages from Colombia to the Florida consulate, where hundreds of anxious Colombians kept a vigil, hoping...
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...
...where a town once stood. A crew of 78 rescuers occupied the area, rushing gray-caked victims in stretchers made from coffee bags strung between poles. Badly overworked and undersupplied, the crew viewed the relief situation as increasingly desperate. "We are working against time," said Raúl Alferez, a Colombian Red Cross worker. "There are still a lot of people out there to be rescued, and we are not getting to them...