Burial Squads Join Searchers at Colombia Eruption Site

Rescuers continued to search for survivors in the muddy debris of the city of Armero Thursday. Burial squads also moved in--gouging long trenches in the volcanic mud with back hoes and dumping truckloads of bodies into them.

Soldiers, acting on orders from health officials, slogged through the muck with small cans of gasoline, dousing decaying bodies and setting them afire, then shooting animals that had been feeding off the corpses. The men wore masks against the stench.

Residents who fled began returning to Mariquita, to the north, and other towns that escaped major damage from the mud avalanche that flowed into the Andes valley Nov. 13 after the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano.

A lake of mud buried Armero and parts of other towns below. By conservative estimates, at least 21,000 persons were killed in Armero alone. The mayor’s office in Mariquita, where the small hospital became an emergency clinic, said about 15,000 people have now returned.

Scientists monitoring the volcano cautioned against complacency. “The danger is not over,” said Haroun Tazieff, French minister for natural disasters.

International relief specialists also continue to arrive. Prominent among them was the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), M. Peter McPherson, who plans to visit Nevado del Ruiz.