Official Negligence Alleged in Colombia : Volcano Aftermath: Cries of Recrimination Erupt

Children whose parents are still missing are being gathered at one orphanage here to increase the chance of family reunions. Planners seek safe alternatives for destroyed roads, bridges, a railroad and a farming center swallowed by mud. Refugees complain about today and squabble about yesterday and tomorrow.

More than three weeks after Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted, recrimination and controversy parallel the mourning and reconstruction here.

While scientists keep a watchful eye on the once-again-slumbering volcano, and the much-buffeted Colombian government focuses on reconstruction, the press and public officials agonize over explosive questions.

Did man’s negligence contribute to nature’s fury on the night of Nov. 13, when a river of mud cascading off the volcano buried the town of Armero, claiming 23,080 lives by official count? Has the massive relief effort provided effective care for the survivors? What should be done for them now?

In Ibague, the capital of Tolima department in the stricken cotton and coffee region northwest of the capital, the provincial legislature is demanding the resignation of Gov. Eduardo Alzate Garcia.

Alzate Garcia said in a statement last weekend that an order to evacuate Armero was issued about two hours before the disaster struck. Not true, the local Red Cross director said the next day.

At an emotional outdoor funeral mass in Ibague for Armero’s victims, a banner was waved that charged: “The Volcano Didn’t Kill 22,000 People. The Government Killed Them.”

That Nevado del Ruiz had become restive, a potential killer after being dormant for a century and a half, was no secret to the farm people who lived in its shadow. And Armero Mayor Ramon Antonio Rodriguez has emerged as a posthumous hero to critics who claim that both local and national authorities took the volcano’s threat too lightly.

Brandishing a copy of Malcolm Lowry’s “Under the Volcano,” Rodriguez tried for months to do something about what he called “that time bomb” threatening his city. According to German Santamaria, a reporter for the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo with whom Rodriguez spoke often, the mayor was frightened by the threat of floods that would follow the likely collapse of a natural dam above the town.

Assurances of Safety

He was right about the threat, but wrong about the way it would manifest itself. At Rodriguez’s instigation, a congressman demanded assurances of Armero’s safety from the national government. And he got them.

In testimony to Congress on Sept. 24, just 50 days before the tragedy, the minister of mines, the minister of defense and the minister of public works all asserted that the government was aware of the risk from the volcano and was acting to protect the population. It would not surprise many people if President Belisario Betancur soon names new ministers of mines and public works.

Santamaria says Rodriguez made such a pest of himself that the governor of Tolima eventually refused to hear any more from him on the subject, even though a risk map showed Armero to be in the path of a possible mud slide from the snow-capped volcano. The mayor died in the act of broadcasting an appeal for help on his amateur radioman’s transmitter.

Tragedy Was Avoidable

When the volcano erupted, the mud slide was overwhelming. But France’s leading disaster expert said after visiting the ruins that it was a tragedy that could have been averted.

It is a truism in Latin America, though, that the only sure ways to get a man to abandon his land is to show him tangible evidence of immediate danger, or to order him off at gunpoint. How the people of Armero might have been saved is now the subject of judicial inquiry, congressional debate and scrutiny by the vigorous Colombian press.

In addition to the fatalities, the Colombian government says, the volcano destroyed governmental and commercial functions, disrupting the lives of some 230,000 people, and ruined about 27,000 acres of crops. There are about 20,000 refugees and a need for 6,000 new dwellings.

The disaster at Armero was unusual in that more people died than were driven from their homes; the dead outnumbered the injured by about 4 to 1.

Blood, Food Donated

Relief came quickly. Colombians lined up by the thousands to give blood. Slum dwellers donated food. The United States rushed helicopters from Panama. Food, medicine, clothing and tents came from all over the world. Within 48 hours, the rescue effort had crested, and attention shifted to caring for the afflicted and the daunting prospect of reconstruction.

The Colombian government, overwhelmed by the disaster, was also overwhelmed, initially, by the need to confront it. “After chaos, chaos,” the Colombian newsweekly Semana commented.

More relief supplies came than Colombia needed or could quickly assimilate. Some strayed or were stolen. Rescue workers abounded, but not all were properly trained or equipped. Injured people died in the mud who might have been saved in a more developed part of the world.

Five Looters Shot

Soldiers shot at least five looters masquerading as relief workers. A team of Japanese orthopedic surgeons was separated from its equipment soon after arrival. The surgeons went home without having performed a single operation--and without their equipment, according to Colombian press reports.

Echoing sharp criticism of the early relief effort by the media and survivors, President Betancur’s congressional opposition is demanding an accounting, and the attorney general’s office is examining the disbursement of relief funds. In the meantime, the criticism, like the tragedy itself, has helped unite mourning Colombians.

Observers knowledgeable about Latin America, including American officials here, tend to think that the relief was effective in the context of Third World realities.

“Maybe it didn’t tick like a fine little clock, but remember, we had neither the experience nor the infrastructure to deal with a disaster of that size,” said Juan Castillo, a spokesman for the president.

Visit by Jimmy Carter

A wan and shaken Betancur, who repeatedly visits the stricken region with Colombian officials and such sympathetic foreigners as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, has declared an economic emergency to speed reconstruction and has promised a “clean and impeccable” administration of relief donations.

Guillermo Rueda Montana, president of the Colombian Red Cross, said he was proud of the Colombian response to “a catastrophe whose magnitude exceeds all our calculations.” The Colombian armed forces angrily rejected foreign press criticism of its rescue effort as unjust and exaggerated.

Like Carter, U.S. Ambassador Charles A. Gillespie was impressed by the Colombian effort. “After initial confusion and frustration, the crisis management stacked up well against anything I’ve seen or read about,” he said.

Now, a government agency created to coordinate the use of domestic and foreign funds in reconstruction is wrestling with priorities: The mud claimed 50 schools, 400 businesses, 12,000 head of cattle, 9 bridges, 7 miles of highway, 60 miles of local roads, 3 hydroelectric plants, 10 miles of railroad track.

Scattered Near Ruins

Refugees, often complaining loudly, are scattered in towns near the ruins of Armero, where thousands of bodies will rest forever in mud as deep as 40 feet. A provisional town hall, with a newly appointed mayor, has been established at the refugee town of Guayabal, but many of the refugees there think that it, too, is unsafe.

A few want to go back to their town, where 80% of the houses were destroyed. Most want to be paid for what they lost. Thorny questions of resettlement and compensation will dog reconstruction efforts for the foreseeable future.

Then, too, the people of the region, amid a national search for culprits and solutions and the painful contractions of rebirth, are haunted by the belated understanding that the killer volcano could still have the last word.