Volcanoes have similar causes to earthquakes. Sheets of rock beneath the earth’s surface push against each other with amazing power. The rock melts and becomes lava. The lava is forced up to the earth’s surface, where it erupts from volcanoes. Scientists can often predict when volcanoes will erupt, and give people plenty of time to escape. But when a volcano called Nevado del Ruiz erupted in 1985, the people in the nearby town of Armero were caught by surpise.
Nevado del Ruiz is a 5,389-matre high volcano in Colombia, South America. The town of Armero is 74 kilometres away. The volcano had erupted before, in 1845. That eruption killed hundreds of people in Armero. But by 1985, most people had forgotten about the dangers of the volcano and the town’ s population had grown to almost 30,000. Scientists had known for over a year that the volcano was active, but when they tried to warn people of the danger, nobody believed them.
At 9.08 on the night of 13 November 20 million cubic metres of lava exploded from Nevado del Ruiz Snow and ice on the summit of the volcano quickly melted and mud water ice and lava poured into the rivers that surround the volcano The rivers becamewalls of mud up to 30 metres high and travelling at 50 kilometres an hour The people of Armero had no chance to leave the town and climb to satety in the nearby hills Twoand a.half hours after Nevado del Rulz erupted the town of armero was buried in mud and more than 23.000 people were dead lf the scientists warnings had been ignored many lives could have been saved.