Colombia Rescuers Defy Odds, Find 13 Survivors of Mud Slide

Exhausted and grimy rescue workers who refused to give up after being told there was no one left alive in the volcanic mud Tuesday found 13 more survivors of the slide that killed thousands of people last week.

The rescue of the 13, six days after being buried under the mud, was reported after officials had abandoned further hope.

“There are no survivors to rescue,” Colombian Red Cross director Carlos Martinez said at a news conference earlier Tuesday. But government officials say rescue efforts will continue until they can be certain of that.

Meanwhile, a series of small earthquakes rumbled through the area of the Nevado del Ruiz, the voocano whose eruption melted the snowcap and caused the Nov. 13 mud slide. Scientists monitoring the volcano said they would have to study seismograph carts and watch for a continuing pattern of shocks to tell if another eruption is imminent.

Tuesday’s shakes may have been an indication of lava movement inside the volcano, Fred Fischer of the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that the eruption may have resulted in the lava being pushed along a fault line running under the Nevado del Ruiz.