Volcano Victims Lifted to Safety : Still Stunned After Rescue in Colombia

In twos and threes, military helicopters settled to earth Friday at the makeshift hospital set up in a cow pasture here, delivering survivors of the huge mudslides touched off by an eruption of the volcano Nevado del Ruiz.

Rescue teams stood by, and as the helicopters touched down, the rescue workers rushed under their whirling blades to remove the broken men, women and children to army litters.

Seconds after landing, the helicopters were off again to the mud-battered town of Armero, about six miles north of here.

In the first hours of daylight, hundreds of injured were brought to this hastily organized field hospital, one of four in the area about 100 miles northwest of Bogota.

Stunned, Hysterical

Many of the injured were unconscious, with gaping wounds and exposed broken bones. Others were stunned, and still others were hysterical.

“Oh, my father, my father!” a young woman wailed from a stretcher. “My father is back there!”

“What is your name?” a rescue worker shouted at her through the haze of shock.

After a pause, she answered, “Estela Cruz. My poor father.”

Nurses cut away the clothing of the injured and tried to wash the greenish-gray muck out of their eyes, their noses and their wounds. Many of the victims had been trapped in the mud since before dawn Thursday. Now they were disoriented, shivering in the warm air.

Around midnight Wednesday, snow-capped Nevado del Ruiz erupted with an explosion of gas and fiery ash. About three hours later, hundreds of tons of mud cascaded into the prosperous farming town of Armero, catching many of the residents asleep and burying all but a few square blocks of the town.

An estimated 17,000 to 20,000 people died in Armero and a handful of other towns and villages, officials say. Uncounted thousands were forced to flee their homes.

Pocket of Survivors

Rescue workers in Lerida estimated that 2,000 people survived in a five-square-block area of what used to be the center of town, where the mudslide and raging waters of the Lagunilla River did not reach. Others survived by seeking higher ground in nearby hills, clinging to trees or clambering on rooftops.

Doctors and rescue teams worked tirelessly. Some had been at it for more than 30 hours. But there were too many injured and too few supplies.

“We need medicines, blankets, litters, water jugs,” Army Maj. Jose Guzman told a reporter. “We need five-gallon jugs to take water to the people who are still out there.”

Doctors worked in three army-issue hospital tents, in one of them placing patients in stretchers on the ground. Water and gasoline trucks were lined up outside. Torn clothing littered the area.

“We’re out of food here,” said Capt. Carlos Vila, an army reserve officer in charge of supplies. “The only thing I’ve got left is Cokes and water. I had food for 2,000, but it was gone by this morning. I am supposed to get 5,000 army rations in a few hours.”

Cardboard Splints

Doctors used cardboard and masking tape to fashion splints to keep broken bones in place until the victims could be transported to city hospitals, often in pickup trucks and private cars. But even cardboard was in short supply, and a soldier called on local people to donate any they might have.

Policemen and soldiers kept crowds out of the hospital area, which was fenced with barbed wire. Red-eyed men and women in search of missing relatives pushed forward to catch a glimpse of every victim carried out to holding areas--a church, a clinic, a school.

Volunteers read out lists of the injured, but many of those who waited, like Luz Elena Jacomen, 55, were disappointed.

“I’m looking for my daughter, but no one has seen her,” she said. “There’s nothing.”

Rescue Difficult

According to pilots and civil defense workers, the rescue operation is a difficult one.

“People are chest-deep in mud,” Lt. Luis Carlos Gil, a navy pilot, said. “The mud creates suction, and we have to be very careful not to break more bones as we pull people out.”

Gil said the helicopters cannot land on the mud, but must hover close to the surface while rescuers lower themselves on ropes and work at freeing people

He said they were bringing in the worst-injured first, leaving for later the dead and those who seemed to be safe on hillsides or rooftops.

Many of the people who have been rescued cry out with fear for relatives who have not been accounted for.

Saved Children

“I grabbed my children,” 34-year-old Luz Maria Velasquez said. “Someone yelled that the water was coming and I grabbed them. I got up to a hill with my children and my brother, but my husband and my father, I think they are dead.”

Her sister, Elena, said she felt the first tremors of Nevado del Ruiz about 2 p.m. Wednesday.

“By 5 p.m.,” she went on, “there was a lot of ash, but the priest turned on the loudspeaker at the church and said everyone should be calm. He said there was no problem, that we should all put handkerchiefs over our mouths.”

The next day, most of the town was buried--including, residents said, the church.

Nancy de Quintero, 22, the mother of two children, was one of those who survived near a small market in the center of town.

‘By the Luck of God’

“We tried to leave one way, and the water came,” she said. “We tried to leave another way, and the water came. There were only a few blocks left, and then it stopped. By the luck of God, the water didn’t reach us.

“But, oh, God, we need more helicopters. My husband and my father are still back there, and people say the volcano is going to explode again. They’ll be buried.”

As she spoke, a middle-aged man pleaded with her: “Did you see my wife, Gloria Chavez? She’s short and round-faced.”

He said he had been at work in another town when the volcano erupted.

De Quintero said she had not seen his wife, then added, “But I’m sure she must have been there.”

Criticizes President

She criticized Colombia’s President Belisario Betancur, whom she saw as he toured the area Thursday.

“He just landed, looked and left,” she said. “He didn’t rescue anyone.”

Some people, concerned about others, tried to walk the five miles back to the muddy edge of Armero on Friday morning, but as they made their way toward the ruined town, a caravan of trucks and buses moved out in the other direction, and people on board waved them back. The fleeing people said they had felt new tremors and were certain that another eruption was imminent.

Outside the field hospital, soldiers tried to disperse the crowd that gathered in the hope of identifying relatives.

“The mud is going to come again,” someone in the crowd shouted. “This is an emergency.”

The relatives of the missing held their ground.