PURACE, Colombia — Oliverio Quira typically goes to test on his cattle on a plot of land he owns lower than a mile from the Purace volcano in southwestern Colombia. There he sits and watches the billowing ash column rising from the crater.
Regardless of a current alert indicating that an eruption is probably going within the coming days or even weeks because of elevated seismic exercise on the volcano and the emission of ash columns reaching as much as 900 meters (almost 3,000 ft), he isn’t afraid.
“I’ve lived on the volcano, I grew up there … so I’ve no cause to worry it. I’ll maintain going there, alert or not. I’ve to take care of my animals,” Quira, 65, advised The Related Press. He’s a member of the Purace Indigenous Reserve, a territory belonging to the Coconuco Indigenous individuals who have historically inhabited the volcano’s environment.
Nonetheless, for the reason that alert issued on Nov. 29, the encompassing neighborhood has been on edge. Authorities have sought to organize for a preventive evacuation of no less than 800 individuals who reside on the volcano’s periphery, in scattered properties among the many mountains.
The Purace volcano, standing 4,640 meters (greater than 15,000 ft) above sea degree, is one in every of Colombia’s energetic volcanoes, with no less than 51 eruptive occasions for the reason that yr 1400. Its most up-to-date vital eruption was recorded in 1977, in keeping with the Colombian Geological Service.
For the Coconuco folks, the volcano is sacred and a protecting spirit of their territory.
“The volcano is our grasp; we’ve no cause to worry it,” mentioned Alfredo Manquillo, deputy governor of the Purace Indigenous Reserve. “That’s why we respect it and carry out rituals in its identify.”
Rituals embody providing the crater corn, candy crops and a conventional alcoholic drink constructed from fruit generally known as guarapo.
For the Indigenous neighborhood, the volcano sends them a message when it emits ash, asking for better care of nature.
“The volcano is saying that we’ve exploited it an excessive amount of … for about 60 years we took cash from beneath it by extracting sulfur, and now with tourism we’re taking cash from above it,” he mentioned, referring to a sulfur mine that was closed a couple of years in the past and to ecological hikes to the volcano. “It’s saying: ‘I’m the one in cost, I’m the one with the facility.’”
Elders who’ve witnessed eruptions of the volcano have sought to reassure the youthful members of the neighborhood who’re seeing the volcano energetic for the primary time.
Reinaldo Pizo, 75, was a baby when the volcano erupted, hurling rocks. He remembers taking shelter below leafy bushes or inside their thatched-roof properties.
His house is situated in a threat zone, however he says he would solely evacuate if the volcano had been to emit toxic gases.
Purace lacks the infrastructure and logistics wanted for a full evacuation, so authorities are working to arrange short-term shelters, in keeping with Mayor Humberto Molano Hoyos.
However Manquillo mentioned additionally they want water storage tanks, meals and an answer to guard their livestock and home animals, that are very important to the agricultural and ranching neighborhood.
“As a few of our companions say: ‘If we’ve to die right here, we’ll die right here. However we’re not going some place else simply to die of starvation,’” Pizo mentioned.
