Omayra Sánchez Garzón was a 13-year-old Colombian girl killed in Armero, Tolima, by the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Volcanic debris mixed with ice to form massive lahars, which rushed into the river valleys below the mountain, killing nearly 23,000 people. After a lahar demolished her home, she was pinned beneath the debris of her house, where she remained trapped in water for three days. After 60 hours of struggling, she died, likely as a result of either gangrene or hypothermia.
About Omayra Sánchez in brief
Omayra Sánchez Garzón was a 13-year-old Colombian girl killed in Armero, Tolima, by the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Volcanic debris mixed with ice to form massive lahars, which rushed into the river valleys below the mountain, killing nearly 23,000 people. After a lahar demolished her home, she was pinned beneath the debris of her house, where she remained trapped in water for three days. Her courage and dignity touched journalists and relief workers, who put great efforts into comforting her. After 60 hours of struggling, she died, likely as a result of either gangrene or hypothermia. Her death highlighted the failure of officials to respond correctly to the threat of the volcano, contrasted with the efforts of volunteer rescue workers to reach and treat trapped victims, despite inadequate supplies and equipment. The death toll was increased by the lack of early warnings, unwise land use, as villages were built in the likely path of lahar, and a lack of preparedness in communities near the volcano. It was Colombia’s worst natural disaster, the second-deadliest volcanic disaster of the 20th century.
It was the fourth-deadlier eruption recorded since 1500 AD. Its lahARS were the deadliest in volcanic history. Prior to the eruption, Omayra and her family were awake, worrying about ashfall from the eruption. The Colombian Congress criticised scientific and civil defense agencies for scaremongering, and the government and army were preoccupied with the guerrilla campaign in Bogotá, which was then at its height. The first pulse enveloped most of the town of ArmerO, killing up to 20,000People; the two later pulses weakened buildings. Another lahar killed 1,800 people in nearby Chinchiná, and 13 other villages were destroyed. A photograph of SánChez taken by the photojournalist Frank Fournier shortly before she died was published in news outlets around the world, later designated the World Press Photo of the Year for 1986. For the first few hours after the mudflow hit a crack, she got covered by concrete by her hand, but she was trapped up to her waist to her neck while she was covered by the mud. After the rescue teams tried to help her, they realized that her legs were trapped under her house’s roof’s roof.
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This page is based on the article Omayra Sánchez published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
