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rachelmanija Jan. 13th, 2025 12:54 pm)
rachelmanija Jan. 13th, 2025 12:54 pm)
A really interesting, gripping nonfiction book about two deadly volcanic eruptions in Colombia, how many of the same people were involved with both, and how what happened with the first one influenced social reactions to the second. Unexpectedly, there is also volcanologist drama.
Bruce begins with an account of Colombia's depressing colonial history, which was very intertwined with its geology - in addition to being tectonically active, it has lots of gold and gemstones, or at least it did when the Spanish invaded. Then she proceeds to the story of a young geology student, Marta Calvache, who briefly studied volcanoes in New Zealand before returning to Colombia. In 1985 the volcano Nevado del Ruiz began showing signs of unusual activity. This is when Calvache discovered that she was literally Colombia's leading volcano expert by default.
She and other Colombian geologists tried to get help from actual volcanologists internationally, but due to political violence in Colombia and mass incompetence/uselessness of various countries' governments, this was inadequate. Nevertheless, they did manage to get some experts in who warned them that Nevado del Ruiz was liable to erupt soon, and that this could cause massive mudslides in nearby towns. Unfortunately, government uselessness/corruption struck again, not helped by international experts contradicting themselves in public, and the towns in danger were basically jerked around and given conflicting information, while Marta and other geologists desperately tried to gather information and warn people.
The volcano erupted in November, causing a massive mudslide which killed 23,000 people. This was followed by a completely botched relief effort. You may have heard of it because of Omayra Sanchez, a 13-year-old girl who was trapped in a pool of water for days and could not be rescued, despite many people trying, as they didn't have the necessary equipment; she was the subject of a haunting photograph. Bruce doesn't even mention her, but instead recounts the story of two young geology students who were the sole survivors of their class, and got to see the lack of useful help firsthand.
Marta Calvache, horrified, threw herself into the study of volcanoes and ended up in charge of a research station by Galeras, another active volcano. She corresponded with international volcanologists, one of whom discovered that a particular signal seemed to correspond with an imminent eruption. So the science was progressing. But "imminent" can mean anything from "in five minutes" to "in five years." Because of this, a village was evacuated, then stayed evacuated for ages, causing major economic damage from a volcano that never did erupt - because the scientist who said it would had not actually looked at any data. Unsurprisingly, this caused a lot of public bitterness.
In 1993, a number of volcanologists, geologists, chemists, etc held a volcano conference at the Galeras research station. Despite indications that Galeras might erupt very soon, a number of them decided to tour the crater to do various scientific tasks.
In a phenomenon which has also been a factor in a number of fatal aviation accidents, the people who giving the warnings were lower-ranking and less respected than the people who wanted to go ahead, and so were ignored or brushed aside. Calvache's warnings were disregarded by the more famous American chemist Stanley Williams, who wanted to lead a crater trip. She did at least manage to limit the number of people going to the crater, and told them to get in and out as fast as possible. They did not do this. Also, despite repeated warnings, the government had refused to close the volcano to tourists, and so a local man and two teenagers took advantage of the handy ropes left by the scientists and followed them into the crater.
KA-BOOM!
Six scientists and the three tourists were killed, including Calvache's friend and co-worker who had worked on Nevado del Ruiz with her, and six scientists were seriously injured. Calvache and another woman scientist climbed into the crater despite not knowing if it would erupt again, and carried out the leader of the crater expedition, Stanley Williams - a task which took two hours due to the extreme difficulty of the terrain.
By this point a lot of Colombians were so furious with the government and volcanologists that the general reaction to this was basically "Fuck around, find out."
And now we get into the absolutely bizarre surprise twist! Stanley Williams gave a number of interviews where he claimed to be the sole survivor of the eruption. People who knew him first thought he was mistaken, then worried that he had brain damage from his head injury. As time went by and he continued to make that claim, they largely decided he was just an asshole.
Victoria Bruce, the author of this book who at that time didn't know about this controversy, heard that Williams was looking for a ghostwriter. Excited at the idea of working with him, she met with him to suggest herself, but he already had someone. A volcanologist heard of this meeting and contacted her to basically say, "Everyone hates this guy, he's at least partly responsible for multiple people getting killed, and he keeps spouting blatant lies about the incident. And also, he's a research thief! He stole the research of the guy who actually did predict the Galeras eruption! Lemme introduce you to literally everyone else involved."
Bruce then talked to several other people, got interested in working with them, and based on this book seems to have gotten interviews with nearly everyone involved except Stanley Williams. Their books came out at the same time and they both got sent on tour, presumably not to the same places at the same time or I assume there would be an afterword about a book tour brawl. I'm now curious to read Williams' book and get his side of the story.
Content notes: Some pretty gruesome descriptions of death by volcano.
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My dad has seen lots more erupting but was in a light plane crash when the engine failed while they were taking photos of the 1995 Ruapehu eruption and broke his back, fortunately fine after surgery with no spinal damage. He was mostly upset that he missed most of the eruption recovering.
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I want to read your dad's memoirs.
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The field trip also involved excellent catering and copious quantities of wine - all the geology students were very cheerful drunks! Just as well as some of them had to crawl off the boat after a rather brisk crossing.
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is intrigued by descriptions of death by volcano is deeply annoyed by the Great White Male Scientist sailing in
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Marta Calvache's professional life sounds intensely frustrating, but she sounds amazing.
(I had heard of the Nevado del Ruiz eruption; I had not heard of the Galeras disaster.)
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