Guatemala's Fuego volcano: people were not educated about the dangers of the pyroclastic flows
Professor Raymond Cas, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment,
Contact details: +61 400 967 610 or [email protected]
The current eruption was not a surprise but the magnitude and suddenness of it appears to have caught Guatmela's authorities by surprise.
The eruption resulted from the explosive destruction of a lava flow or dome complex erupting from the vent. The explosively ejected lava blocks shattered on impact around the vent and transformed into very hot and very fast moving pyroclastic flows of gas, lava blocks and ash, called block and ash flows, which quickly focused flow into narrow and steep river valleys.
Several villages built on the lower slopes of the volcano and in these valleys, which had not been evacuated, were buried by the deposits of these very hot pyroclastic flows. Compounding the problem, there was heavy rainfall at the time of the eruption, and so the deposits of the pyroclastic flows were remobilised into mudflows ("lahars") of water and volcanic ash, which also flowed down those valleys. Hundreds of people may have been killed by both phenomena.
Footage of the eruption indicates that people were not educated about the dangers, standing in the path of the pyroclastic flows, watching them, photographing them, but unaware of their speed, heat and obvious dangers. Further significant eruptions are possible."
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