I had the privilege of visiting Antigua during Guatemala's 175th Anniversary. It was celebrated with much festivity and joy. The people who live there treated my friends and me with great courtesy and warmth. They were virtually all humble and kind people. The volcano looming in the background was ominous, but taken for granted at that time.
My heartfelt sympathies to my brothers and sisters in Guatemala who lost family and loved ones. It is a very sad day.
4
With a groaning destabilized earth, living by an active volcano should be carefully reconsidered.
1
Nice compassion there, buddy. With limited land on which to live, people often have no choice. Where would you like them to go, Boston? Will you be saying something similar about Californians once the Big One hits, or of New Orleans residents when they inevitably get flooded again, or in Seattle once Helen goes off again? Meanwhile, people will eventually be saying to you (and me), with climate change, living by the coastline should be carefully reconsidered....but, by then it will be too late....Mother Earth will have shown we're no match.
1
One should never underestimate the raw destructive power of Mother Nature or assume they can out run her!
2
It is sad that the article inadequately explained the nuee ardente (French for glowing cloud) which is the geologists name for this type of eruption and the subsequent flow of pyroclastic materials. Pyroclastic, pyro means hot, like hundreds of degrees hot, clastic means particles. The cloud skates along the ground on a gaseous base, thus it cascades down the slopes of the volcano at speeds in the hundred miles per hour rate. The cloud itself is composed of particles that emit the hot gases and any water in its path is also vaporized.
If you are in the path of such a cloud, even many miles from the eruption, and the cloud is headed for you there is little you can do to escape. Only if you are near the end of the extent of the flow do you have a chance to get away. How do you know where the flow will end? There is no way for any observer to see or know this. You can flee but it will not save you unless you are in that distant zone where the cloud will finally come to rest. So certainly, get on your horse and get out of town, maybe you will be one of the lucky ones.
The people close to the volcano had no chance to escape. Their chance to survive this disaster was to learn about the nature of volcanic eruptions. Education could have saved them. Of course, education alone isn't enough. Some reject or discount facts, rationalizing that it won't happen to them, it won't happen soon, land is cheap. Everyone lives with hazards. Earthquakes-floods-tornadoes, Oh my
3
News reports say that the pyroclastic flow was at speeds of up to 435 miles per hour. Can't outrun that, whether you take a picture or not.
5
I was in Hawai'i 2 months before Kilauea started shifting and spattering. The view of their potential volcanic risk was complacent, based upon many monitoring sites and the very high probability that everyone could be evacuated easily and safely. We've kept in touch with our hosts, 4-5 miles from the flows, who is still thinking 'We can get out if we need to, they're monitoring, and the lava moves slowly'.
Guatemala and other places have a more volatile substrate, much less monitoring and much less forewarning of activity. Their people are at risk in a way that few Hawaiians and none of us on the mainland can appreciate.
If we want to do something for Guatemala and other countries, to share the resources and decrease the highest risks; we could move even 1/10 of our seismic equipment and forecasting abilities to those highly vulnerable areas. They're people too.
25
Kilauea and Guatemala's volcanoes are quite different, although Kilauea does have a history of explosive eruptions, including a deadly one in 1790, as explained by the U.S. Geological Survey. Violent eruptions do not necessarily give effective warning. An eruption in Japan, Ontake-san in October 2014, caught hikers unawares, with 57 confirmed killed.
Guatemala was not necessarily poorly prepared, although certainly volcano preparedness and education need to be reviewed.
The U.S., apart from Hawaii, is not necessarily well prepared for volcano hazards. I would check for possible budget cuts to the U.S. Geological Survey, and budget cuts for preparedness programs. Housing in western Washington has been built on volcanic mudflows less than 500 years old, and such events will happen again.
The Pacific rim states, along with volcanoes, also have earthquakes. It has been discouraging to see proposals to cut funding for high-tech alerts of earthquakes already underway (based on electronic signals moving faster than earthquake waves).
7
It all comes back to the silicon-oxygen tetrahedron. Just like carbon is the basis for organic chemistry, silicon is the basis for geology and its chemistry. The silicon ion is surrounded by four oxygens, forming a pyramidal shape ... the tetrahedron, or four sided shape. These give rigidity to the volcanic material. Fewer silicon-oxygen tetrahedra means more fluid flow. Like lava in Hawaii. More of these tetrahedra, means more silica and more explosive events, like Guatemala or Mount St. Helens.
Sometimes, the Hawaiian volcanics are called 'basic,' the ones from Guatemala are called 'intermediate,' and ones from, say, Yellowstone are called 'acidic.'
13
You don’t want to say “silicon ion”, just like you don’t want to say “carbon ion”. It’s silicon atom and carbon atom. And both COVALENTLY bond oxygen. Silica, or silicon dioxide SiO2, and of course carbon dioxide CO2.
The tetrahedral “silicate” is an anion of -4 valence [SiO4]-4 analogous to the carbonate anion [CO4]-4.
4
For those who believe that people were killed because they were trying to take pictures or videos of the eruption, let me tell you that that is not the case. People were killed because they could not escape the pyroclastic flows, which as experts have said, are not like lava, they are much worse. Their mistake was to live so close to the volcano. Unfortunately, they are so poor that they did not have anywhere else to live and now, those who survived have lost what little they possessed...I know this because I live here, in Guatemala. I am Guatemalan.
63
Guatemala City has always worried me with regards to volcanic activity. It is the largest city in Central America, and is well on its way to 3 million people within its metropolitan area. The Volcan de Fuego is one of four large and active stratovolcanoes that are within a 40 mile radius of the center of the city.
Guatemala is also a very poor nation, with little in the way of regulations that are passed and enforced for any economic activity. As a result urban sprawl has expanded outwards from the city willy-nilly, well into valleys and hillsides that have historically suffered massive lahars and pyroclastic flows from these four volcanoes. In fact, the city is criss-crossed with these magnificent, steep canyons, and is frequent victim of huge sinkholes. These are all indicative of the fact that the city lies on top of huge deposits of tuff (light volcanic ash) and pumice that previous massive eruptions have thrown into the valley in which the city lies. So a huge eruption hundreds of times bigger than this one is bound to happen sooner or later.
I leave on one last note--the 2nd largest eruption anywhere in the world in the 20th century happened in Guatemala, at Volcan Santa Maria, only about 100 miles east of Guatemala City. It was slightly bigger than the Pinatubo eruption that happened in the Philippines in 1991 (that one was the 3rd largest eruption in the 20th century). These volcanoes near Guatemala City are explosive monsters.
20
People more concerned with taking cell phone shots and video than running for their very lives. Sad, but true.
8
Paul, you don't know that. You are interpreting and being judgmental. It is not the time for that. In fact, if you could learn not to be judgmental, it might help everyone including you.
22
It's a risk proposition. You can gauge the risk of staying there by watching the rate of flow v. the time it takes to whip out your phone and take the picture. The ability to assess risk is very Darwinian.
(I'd take the picture.)
1
Those on this thread that cite the use of cell phone videos as contributing to the deaths and injuries from this eruption haven't a clue. The majority of causalities from this disaster occurred as a result of simply living close to where the volcano erupted; these people were simply not able to evacuate in time due to not having prior notice of the volcano's eruption. Most of the individuals living in the most-affected area (Esculinta) are poor and I can assure you that they did not have the time to get footage of any of this on their cell phones (if they even had smart phones to begin with). Depending on one's vantage point, one could (and many did) record the eruption without immediate danger to their physical safety. So attributing these deaths to "Darwinism" is an example of moralizing of the worst kind, and shows the profound ignorance of the NYT's first-world readership.
59
well said spent a lot of time guate and poor isn’t the word to describe the conditions there..
2
Quite to the contrary, they were filming a pyroclastic flow. These flows can travel many 10's of km in some cases from the volcano and can move at speeds of 200 km per hour. Temperatures inside the flow can be hundreds of degrees - death is essentially instantaneous. That said, it appears the flow they were looking at was pretty much spent and moving slowly, but it was likely still hot.
Most people affected and injured in this eruption were likely affected by simply by ash fall, not by the pyroclastic flow. Survival rates in pyroclastic flows are near zero.
A geologist.
6
The volcano erupted both, lava and pyroclastic flow. People who died did because of the latter, not due to lava. In fact, there are many people who got severe burns because of lava and as you said, they were affected by ash; but they are still finding people who were charred instantly by pyroclastic flow.
1
The next great extinction will be all the stupid human beings taking cell phone selfies as the comet hurtles toward them.
7
Those capturing the volcano flow on their cell phones may be candidates for the Darwin Awards.
7
We're talking about residents who very likely didn't have smartphones, unlike these digital colonialists traveling across the globe taking selfies at any natural event they deem dangerous enough ( i.e.cool) to post on social media.
Please THINK before you post. Darwin indeed...
14
You don't think these 'poor Guatemalan peasants' have modern technology or cell phones? How Colonial of you. Of course they have smart phones. Think about that before you post.
Begging your pardon, but unless you have been in Guatemala, as I have, you’re ignorant of the degree of poverty there. The infant mortality rate is horrific. People work as beasts of burden, walking bent over with 12 ft high bundles on their backs. Do you really believe peasants who can’t feed their children care about cell phones? Really, shame on you!
5
It simply must be said The sheer ignorance on display in the video is breathtaking.
These people live on the flanks of Central America's most active volcanoes and have access to the World's knowledge base literally at their fingertips (in their smart phones). Yet they are unaware of the deadly danger they faced in the form of the pyroclastic flow barrelling down the valley towards them?
Positively Darwinian.
4
It simply must be said The sheer ignorance on display in the 50th state of the US of A.
These people live on the flanks of Pacific's most active volcanoes and have access to the Word's knowledge base literally at their fingertips.
And yet their houses get wiped out by a lava flow right now because they build their home in a not so good spot.
6
You are moralizing in the worst possible way, probably doing so in the relative safety of your perch in the United States. There is nothing "Darwinian" about this; there are dozens dead or injured who simply did not have an opportunity to respond to this danger or to run away from it in time - their only sin was living too close to where the eruption occurred. Would you blame people who drowned in a hurricane when it hit landfall (and indeed, those victims have much more prior warning of such a disaster before one like this) because they didn't evacuate on the arbitrary terms you're setting for them? And depending on your vantage point in the areas close to the volcano (i.e. closer to the city of Antigua), one could (and many did) record the eruption and be in no immediate physical danger.
20
Nope. Your response is a wildly inaccurate characterization of the very specific point I made in my post. Nothing to do with the poor. Nothing to do with a hurricane. No "arbitrary terms". Only the ignorance of people standing in the path of a visibly approaching pyroclastic flow. Period. Try again.
I was flabbergasted watching the video as the pyroclastic flow was rolling down the valley toward them and people were scrambling to get a selfie shot of the erupting volcano on the bridge instead of fleeing for their lives.
24
I worry that too many of the deaths are due to how silly people have become over cell phones in general and cell phone video in particular. Instead of getting out of the area, people are busy recording the eruption.
10
When Mt. Saint Helen erupted here in the Northwest, and family went out to watch it. Two parents and their two children ages 9 and 11. All of them died. There was a graphic photo soon after of the little boy's body, covered in ash, gaping mouth...in the bed of their pickup truck.
People are incredibly stupid, and bring their children along to witness it.
4
The article is inaccurate. It's not a question of whether pyroclastic flows "can be devastating and deadly." They are. I don't know if those people realize how lucky they were to escape. It's not something you should stop and watch.
12
I couldn't fine where the article said "can be deadly" - I could only find "are deadly".
In any case, pyroclastic flows are only deadly to people in their paths.
2
Could the Times show in maps the relationship of the volcanoes that have erupted in Hawaii and Guatemala? Most of us do not have globes to see the relationship. Are there any other volcanoes in the Pacific Rim that may erupt also?
(Not for publication)
9
Since you have a computer, I recommend using one of the map applications to answer your questions. Also, search "Pacific Ring of Fire". /www.google.com.mx/maps/place/Volcán+de+Fuego/@14.4747306,-90.8981443,8z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x858917891266c2c3:0x361e7cff7a340f60!8m2!3d14.4746899!4d-90.8806346?hl=en
3
you can look them up on Google Maps
1
Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Glacier Peak, and Mount Baker are active and in my backyard.
1
Generally in Guatemala is the poor and the rural population that always suffered.
10
These volcanoes are actually dangerously close to Guatemala City, which has a population of 3 million. This particular eruption affected people most in the towns surrounding Antigua (one of the other major cities not far from Guatemala City). I do not even want to think about what would happen if an eruption caused this kind of damage in the capital because they do not have anywhere near the resources that they would need to respond to such a disaster.
10
Heartbreaking for all involved, and I fear there may also have been some volcanologists in the area who may have been caught up in this eruption.
We must think of everyone else who is within a zone of heightened volcanism and seismicity. There are plenty of volcanic fields across the USA. Stay alert and have a plan.
This administration has not exactly been ahead of the curve when it comes to preparing for abruptly arising natural disasters.
23