Rescue Workers Confounded by Parrot

British rescuers said a Spanish-speaking parrot confounded them for hours as they hunted survivors of last week’s devastating volcano in Colombia.

The volunteers, part of a 10-member multinational rescue corps, used sensitive equipment to detect heat from the bodies of possible survivors in the lake of mud that was once the city of Armero.

But the equipment seemed of no help to the rescuers who plainly heard the persistent cry of what seemed like a child pleading, “Mama, Papa, here,” British firefighter Mike White said.

“After an intense search, we approached the ruins of the church, and all we found was a parrot in a tree that couldn’t stop saying the only words it knew.”

White said rescuers lured the parrot into a cage and brought it to Lerida, a village about 3 miles southeast of Armero.