“The snow has already exploded” a farmer who lives very close to the summit of Nevado del Ruiz, in Colombia, in reference to what happened in 1985. Despite warnings from the National Disaster Risk Management Unit, that this Thursday he reiterated the urgency of evacuating 28 villages from six municipalities, he does not want to leave his farm. His neighbor, Uber Ortiz, questions who is going to watch over the crops if they leave, and who answers them if the crops are damaged or livestock are lost because they leave. “They say that it is in orange activity, but I see it as normal, as always” Uber. “I see it in the same conditions as always,” agrees Rubiela Muñoz in front of a broken but very fertile, overwhelming landscape. Meanwhile, seismologists maintain the alert, which in 1985 lasted almost a year before an eruption created the avalanches that wiped Armero, a town hundreds of kilometers away, from the map where some 25,000 people died.
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