Residents Buried in Mud : Armero: ‘White City’ Now ‘Land of the Dead’

Once this farming community was called the “white city,” for the blanket of cotton farms that surrounded its bustling commercial center. Today, the blanket covering Armero is a shroud of volcanic mud that has buried thousands of Armero’s residents.

“It is a cemetery now,” said Elsa Martinez, an Armero resident who missed the disaster because she was out of town. “It is a collective cemetery. They should name it ‘Land of the Dead.’ ”

Martinez, 43, had been visiting a sister in Bogota, the capital, Wednesday night when the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted, sending a torrent of mud and rubble down the Lagunilla River and into Armero.

Futile Search

Like scores of others, Martinez returned home on foot from a nearby town Saturday to see the disaster for herself and to carry out a futile search for lost relatives.

“My mother and five brothers and sisters are gone,” Martinez said.

Armero, located about 30 miles from Nevado del Ruiz in the central range of the Andes, had been a town of about 25,000 people before the snow-capped volcano blew. Officials estimated that about 20,000 of the townspeople died in the inundation.

The once-rich farmland surrounding Armero had been rich with cotton, sorghum, rice, corn and other vegetable crops. Now that land is a mud plain, littered with uprooted trees, boulders, parts of shattered houses and wrecked automobiles--and here and there, a survivor, struggling to stay alive.

Girl, 12, Dies

On Saturday, a 12-year-old Armero girl trapped for three days with just her head above mud and water died despite intense rescue efforts. Rescuers had been unable to pull the girl, Omayra Sanchez, free because the body of her dead aunt and the timbers of their collapsed house were lying across her legs.

Earlier, the round-faced girl had called for her mother, who survived and stood nearby to comfort her, and worried that because she had missed two days of school, she might not be able to keep up with her class. A medical worker said the girl died of a heart attack brought on by exposure.

Those who returned to Armero on Saturday found cattle lying dead or dying of thirst. They saw herds of horses and cows, their ribs beginning to protrude, pacing narrow patches of high ground in search of food and water.

They saw mud flats where their town had been, but pointed to former landmarks as if they could still see them intact.

“That was a gas distributing company,” said one. “That was the center of town over there,” said another. “That was my brother’s ranch.”

Animals Trapped

On the outskirts of town, helpless fighting cocks walked a corral fence above pools of mud that would drown them if they jumped down.

A black dog clung to a fallen tree trunk 20 feet from a road and 40 feet from a battered farm house.

Hilberto Paiba, 33, unable to find his missing mother, father and three brothers, waded waist deep through mud to save the dog as if it were a member of his own family.

“You have to have compassion for anything that lives, anything that God created,” Paiba said.

Felix Rojas, 27, whose father and seven brothers and sisters died, said the exhausting rescue efforts eased his pain.

“Yesterday we saved a family of nine. We saved another woman named Ofelia whose leg was trapped underneath a concrete post. She had a machete and was starting to cut off her own leg to free herself but we got to her,” Rojas said.

Finding Bodies

On Saturday, however, the volunteers, civil defense workers and firefighters were finding only bodies on the edge of town.

“There are five dead over there,” Enrique Tobar said pointing to a clump of trees. “It looks like it was a family.”

Alvaro Vasquez used ropes and boards to make his way through the thickening mud to look for his mother and brother in an area where their house should have been.

“There isn’t even a cockroach alive out there,” he said as he returned.

Official rescue efforts with helicopters continued in the center of Armero but progressed more slowly than in previous days.

“We are having trouble seeing people now,” said Colombian Air Force Col. Favio Zapata. “They’re covered by the trees and mud and have no way to signal us.”

Forced to Leave Land

Twenty-four helicopters flew in and out of the temporary military base and field hospital in Lerida, about eight miles from Armero, carrying a trickle of injured and elderly survivors.

Among them were Isaac Meneses, 67, and his 104-year-old mother, Ascension, who had to be forced by rescue workers to leave their land.

“We did not want to leave,” said Meneses. He said the mud came to within five yards of his house, “but the house was fine.”

His mother said all of her aches and pains were due to old age.

Doctors said many of the injured had gaping wounds that were badly infected after three days in the open.

From the air above Armero, the outline of city blocks could be seen wiped clean of their houses.

Survivors on a few rooftops and surrounding hills could be seen waving frantically to be rescued. Col. Zapata said those people were in relatively good condition and would be removed after the seriously injured and dying were dug out of the mud.

The dead, who were strewn along rivers of mud, would be left for last, he said.

U.S. Ambassador Charles A. Gillespie toured the disaster area with a U.S. government relief expert to determine what kind of U.S. aid should be offered.

U.S. Aid Delivered

Gillespie said in Lerida that 12 U.S. helicopters, two C-130 airplanes and about 120 tons of tents, blankets, cots and other aid had already been delivered.

“This is a tragedy of proportions none of us has seen in terms of loss of human life,” Gillespie said. “One day you see a town of 25,000 and the next day it’s gone.”

Armero was declared a military zone Saturday and dozens of yellow tractors, cranes and shovels moved in to clear a road across the former town--a chore workmen said would take 15 days.

As they shoveled through the hardening mud, sulfur fumes were released, choking soldiers and civilians. A commander handed out surgical masks, and a nurse gave eye drops and tetanus drops against the stinging sulfur.

The residents with missing relatives, however, seemed willing to put up with anything to be near their lost town and their buried families.

“We have the illusion of hope,” said Felix Rojas, “and we will continue to look for our families.”

Last month, a 6-year-old Colombian girl being aided by World Vision warned about Nevado del Ruiz in a letter. (Part II, Page 2.)