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Success in managing volcanic risk, a real-life example

Marta Calvache

Abstract

For communities living in volcanic areas, it is a huge challenge to deal with a volcanic reactivation and to manage the uncertainty of a possible eruption, even more so, when drastic actions are required, such as evacuation. In these complex situations, knowledge of the environment, perception of the volcanic phenomenon and the political, religious and personal context play an important role in how the authorities and the community deal with the emergency. This presentation shows the experience during the reactivation and volcanic eruptions in the area of 'Tierradentro' in the departments of Cauca and Huila in Colombia, where the NASA indigenous community faced the reactivation and eruptions of the Nevado del Huila volcano. Also, how the indigenous, local and national authorities interacted resulting in a response that allowed them, to manage the situations arising not only in moments of uncertainty about the occurrence of the eruption but also about its size and the needs of a region that could be strongly affected. Finally, three main Vulcanian-type eruptions occurred in February and April 2007 and November 2008, which generated columns of ash several thousand meters above the volcano, with the dispersion of ash mainly towards the West, the formation of a lava dome and small pyroclastic density current, in the eruption of November 2008, and the phenomenon with the greatest destructive power was the formation of lahars with large volumes along the rivers that drain the volcano and that reached distances where a good part of the community lives.