Posted on 06/03/2018 10:20:46 PM PDT by Kartographer
From Jorge Luis Altuve, member of Guatemala's mountain rescue brigade A team of about 40 of us from mountain rescue were up on the volcano searching for a person who had gone missing last week.........We'd located the body of the missing person and were going to retrieve it when the activity of the volcano increased quite suddenly.
We were at a height of about 3,700m (12,000ft) and not far from the crater when we decided to abort the operation and descend.......At first, we thought it had started to rain but then I heard something hitting my safety helmet and I said to one of my colleagues: "This is not rain, these are stones!"
The stones raining down on us started getting bigger and bigger. Some were as big as 5cm (2in) in diameter. We'd already started our descent from the mountain when the ash cloud reached us and day turned into night.
From daylight it went to being as dark as at 10pm. Luckily we were carrying all of our equipment which includes torches and helmets and we also know the volcano very well. We started to move a lot more quickly.
We were also in constant communication with our colleagues at the mountain rescue command post and they kept telling us: "Get out of there! Get down, quick!"
In total it took us three or four hours to reach the command post. Luckily we got away unscathed, just with some bruises from the falling stones.
This really came as a surprise, there had been no alert when we'd set out to search for this missing person. We only really realised the magnitude of this when we got back down and saw everything covered in ash and bridges destroyed.
Many people’s lives have been turned upside down by this volcanic eruption. Mother Nature is very powerful and can be very cruel.
Indeed.....it’s a whole lot worse than I first realized when they began reporting on it.
There will be a day when the earth is shaken and all these will be spewing.....the outcome will be very grave.
That’s well done steaks in my book!
My only other observation is one that has held with very few exceptions through history, and that is “See the pyroclastic flow? Be the pyroclastic flow!”
Thanks for the pictures and the informative post. WELL DONE!!
Yep...happy to do so. It was a lot worse than I thought when it hit.....deaths still being reported up to 70 last I read. Very bad event!
Here is additional youtube video on this ongoing tragedy. Death toll is now up around 70.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1KnE57VVyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po4JWodboxc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONF1IL5R4Bw
It was preceded by being named [snip] The Volcan de Fuego, Spanish for “volcano of fire,” [/snip] :^)
It’s always better to visit a volcano when it is not erupting, imho.
Thank you both for the updates.
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