Our world is lit by two fires
One above. And one below.
Nothing can contain the inferno beneath our feet
In the past thousand years,
volcanoes have claimed more than 300,000 lives
No beauty more deadly than the fire within.
The rocky heights of the Andes, in South America,
are more than mere mountains.
Many are sleeping volcanoes.
In Colombia, a peak called Galeras has slumbered more than four decades.
Then in 1988,
soldiers stationed at its summit reported small earthquakes,
and the smell of sulfur.
Some six miles away, the city of Pasto is built on rich volcanic soil
the pride of local farmers.
Galeras has never harmed Pasto.
But a large eruption could threaten up to 400,000 lives.
Colombian officials invited Standley Williams,
of Arizona State University, to work with local volcanologist,
An expert of Latin American volcanoes
William helped organize the international Galeras Workshop,
in January 1993.
El volcan Galeras es el volcan historicamente mas activo
en todo el Colombia...
Close to a hundred volcanologist from fifteen nations attend.
After three days of meetings, they head for the summit.
Galeras has been stable for six months
a reassuring sign to Williams and his colleagues.
We were volcanologist with a lot of experience.
We had been working for five years by that time on this volcano.
We thought we understood Galeras.
In fact, we thought Galeras was in a relatively calm time
for an active volcano.
Most scientist join field trips on the outer slopes of the mountain.
Williams leads a group of twelve
on a grueling, two hour hike to the inner crater.
As his colleagues explore the terrain, Williams keep watch.
Everybody opened up their cases and backpacks and collected samples
of the gases of read the gravimeter.
Geoff Brown, professor from England,
is the expert of the world on how use gravity in volcanoes.
The two Colombian scientists with him were really happy that
they had a chance to work with family of volcanologist.
Igor was working that day
with Nestor Garcia and Nestor's a Colombian, very good friend.
It was an exciting, positive field day.
Then all of a sudden, with no warning we began to hear a lot of noise.
I looked down into the crater and at lgor and Nestor and I yelled,
We better get outta here now.
I made it running, not very far,
before, the first big rock knocked a big hole in my head,
broke my jaw, ruined my ear.
Made it another 20 or 30 feet, I don't know, not very far,
a lot of rocks hit me,
But the next big one broke my left leg shattered my right leg.
I tried to run, but my foot was standing
It was hardly moved my legs
I crawled. The problem was, I was on fire,
so I had to roll over and try to get the fire out.
So I crawled behind a big rock.
The eruption spares everyone on the outer slopes.
But members of Williams group appear at the summit with grim reports.
At least two scientists are dead.
The names of the missing are quickly tallied.
Andrew, Mike, yo, Standley, y Jose Arles.
Luis with help, and Andrew McFarlene with help can make it out.
With help. Not by themselves.
We gotta send somebody down there.
Yeah.
Within 15 minutes, the eruption is over.
Now Williams struggles to remain conscious.
I had hours of time lying there with dead people very close
and thought about going home and being with my wife and kids.
I didn't want to die, that's for sure...
Less than three hours after the eruption,
rescue teams arrive from Pasto.
Three hikers and six volcanologists are dead
in a blast no one could foresee.
Several bodies will never be found.
Rescuers locate Williams when he cried out for help.
He's the last survivor lifted off the mountain.
In 48 hours, he'll be flown by Lear jet,
to a hospital in Arizona.
Sixteen surgeries saved a mangled leg,
and patched a hole in Williams' skull.
Skin grafts hide burns. A hearing aid remedies a ruined ear.
Only his determination survives intact
Galeras remains a threat to thousands who live in its shadow.
A danger undiminished by the tragedy of nine deaths.
The loss of friends and colleagues
breaks the heart but strengthens the will.
I've worked on Galeras now for about eight years
and I've tried hard to essentially get control of Galeras,
and Galeras says, No, I can't be controlled.
Ha, I'm much bigger than you Mr. Williams.
And I come back and say,
No, I'm not going to let you do that' I'm going to come back,
and uh, I'm going to get on top of Galeras. I've been in the crat again.
We're sort of battling it out.
In the past five decades,
nearly thirty scientist have died in eruptions.
Volcanology is a young and dangerous science
one that pits us against the power of the Earth itself.
We live on a fiery planet.
Nearly 2,000 miles beneath our feet,
the Earth's inner core reaches temperatures
of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Molten rock, or magma, rises to the earth's surface,
a cold, rigid crust fractured into some twenty plates.
When magma breaks through crust it becomes lava,
and gives birth to volcanoes.
Most blossom along the unstable boundaries
where one plate dives beneath another,
or two plates spread apart.
Earth's oceans conceal some 80 percent of all volcanic activity.
An underwater ridge 46,000 miles long
marks the boundaries between spreading plates.
Lava fills the gaps.
This deep sea fire fuels hot springs.
At more than 700 degrees Fahrenheit,
water rich in sulfur supports an entire ecosystem,
in the total absence of sunlight.
Some volcanoes rise from the deep.
November 1963. Just south of Iceland, fishermen report explosions.
Within days,
the windswept isle of Surtsey is born.
Earth's fire also forged a tropical paradise.
The Hawaiian Islands are the work of a single plume of magma burning its way
across the pacific plate.
There may be no finer setting for the spectacle of the living earth.
With nearly continuous eruptions dating back to 1790,
ilauea is the most active volcano on earth
and one of the most benign.
At 2000 degrees Fahrenheit,
its fluid lava can flow for miles, and ruin real estate.
But it can generally be escaped at a brisk walk.
This congenial fire has been attracting tourists for over a century
It also captured the attention of an eminent east coast geologist,
Thomas Jaggar.
He believed, the only way to know a crater is to live with it
a visit to ilauea in 1909.
Convinced him he had found the most livable volcano in the world.
In Jaggar's day,
"volcanology" meant little more than a short term expedition
to the aftermath of a major eruption.
It was too little, too late.
In 1912,
Jaggar founded what today is called the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Serving three decades as director, he measured earthquakes,
collected gases and charted subtle changes in ilauea's slopes.
Eventually, he successfully predicted several eruptions.
Many consider him a founding father of modern volcanology.
Today, Hawaiian volcanoes are the best studied on the world.
Decades of firsthand observations are revealing patterns and precursors.
Predicting eruptions is almost routine
Each volcano is unique, with its own pulse, its own life cycle.
But one rule of forecasting applies to all:
The key to the future is the past.
Sakurajima. The "island of fire," in southern Japan.
A noble man commissioned these watercolors
to commemorate an eruption in 1779.
Written accounts of this volcano's fury date back to the eighth century.
Sakurajima is home to some 7,000 people.
Another half million live just across the bay.
This life at the foot of an active volcano.
Sakurajima has been consistently active since 1955.
It erupts up to 400 times a year,
and drops millions of tons of ash on its surrounding.
Local scientists forecast these outbreaks with impressive accuracy.
Residents tune in for ashfall reports.
Eruptions are as commonplace as changes in the weather.
And ash clean-up is a way of life.
Soil enriched with ash yields prime produce, such as loquats.
But each fruit requires individual protection from airborne assaults.
As does every school child on Sakurajima.
Most ash collects on the volcano's slopes
harmless until it rains.
In a flash,
rivers can swell into mudflows that wash out roads and bridges.
Safety channels equipped with sensors and surveillance cameras,
help contain the threat.
Volcanic mudflows can travel up to forty miles an hour,
and sweep up boulders the size if cars
When the rains end, tons of deposits are dumped in the sea.
It's a model system.
But at any moment, Sakurajima could break all the rules.
1914. Lava buries six villages.
More than half the islanders lose their homes.
Twenty-three drown trying to swim across to the mainland.
The anniversary of the 1914 disaster is observed each year
with an evacuation drill.
For a day, residents abandon their homes to the volcano.
A long, familiar history of eruptions keeps these volcano-dwellers vigilant.
Consider them lucky.
Most volcanoes lay quiet for centuries then take is by surprise.
A few of the deadliest have been labeled "extinct"
Some 35 centuries ago,
a Mediterranean island sparkles with art and science.
Then suddenly Santorini blows itself apart.
Seawater rushes in where once stood a mountain
and a civilization vanishes beneath the waves.
The legend of Atlantis still haunts the place today.
79 AD.
Few residents of Pompeii realize Mount Vesuvius is a volcano.
Those who know believe it will not harm them.
Showers of scalding ash seal them in their final agony.
1815 Mount Tambora, Indonesia.
Some 20 cubic miles of debris are launched sky-high.
Most fall back to earth.
But a cloud of ash circles the globe for several years, blocking the sun.
1816 is the "Year without a summer."
In Europe and New England, snow falls in July.
Crop fail, and 80,000 starve.
It's the most powerful eruption in the last 10,000 years.
By contrast, the 1980 explosion of Mount Saint Helens
was almost 80 times smaller.
Yet it packed the punch of 500 atomic bombs.
Magma contains gases that expand violently
as they reach Earth's atmosphere.
It's like pulling the cork on a bottle of champagne
the size of Mount Everest.
A volcano need not explode to be deadly.
Lava too thick to flow can ooze up slowly,
and form a teetering heap of hot rock.
Collapse triggers a searing avalanche of pulverized rock, gas, and ash
called a pyroclastic flow.
At 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and more than 100 miles an hour,
it consumes nearly everything.
1902. The Caribbean town of Saint Pierre prospers
at the foot of a sleeping giant
until May 8th, when Mount Pelee unleashes a pyroclstic flow.
In two minutes, 30,000 people are incinerated.
One survives. Though badly burned, this prisoner was somehow protected
by the thick walls of his cell.
Elsewhere, the devastation is eerie.
Pyroclstic flows are virtually unpredictable and relatively rare.
Many volcanologist have seen them only in photographs.
May, 1991. Southern Japan.
Mount Unzen serves up an extravaganza
some 35 pyroclastic flows a day.
The flows are small. But a village lies too close for comfort.
Evacuations are ordered.
From a safe distance, villagers find the spectacle irresistible.
No less captivated, journalists and volcanologists
from around the globe flock to the scene
among them Maurice and atia rafft.
In the volcano world, these are superstars.
Here you have a pyroclastic flow.
It don't occurs all the time.
When you have lava flow, then it will happen all the time.
It's why this is so interesting, because you have very few.
After more than two decades of filming eruptions,
the raffts have a discriminating eye.
Today, Unzen underwhelms.
This is one of the smallest pyroclastic flow I have seen.
I hope to see bigger one than this one because this is very small really, yes
This is no idle bluster:
Maurice and atia rafft have probably seen more eruptions,
at more volcanoes, than anyone on earth.
The raffts hail from France,
but "home" is wherever then earth breathes fire.
For me, an active volcano,
especially volcanoes that I know very well,
those are like friends, there really is a sort of dialogue
between the volcano and me. I don't know exactly why.
For me, the danger is not important,
I am afraid when I go in a car,
but on volcanoes I forget everything and there is no more danger for me.
For the raffts, there has never been another calling.
I fell in love with volcanoes when I was seven years old.
I saw my first volcano with my father Stromboli, in Italy.
And this was really a discovery for, for me, to see a mountain,
a sort of cone and at the top to have a fire.
To have explosion every minute, was fantastic.
And I have seen this eruption from very bear.
And I was really fascinated, so I decided to become geologist.
I fell in love without seeing active volcanoes.
I have seen films and photos and was, uh, interested in geology,
and so you decided to be volcanologist.
And only two years later I asked to my parents
to go to Italy to see really the volcano.
And I was also impressed when I see for the first time what I wish to do.
We met in fact at the University.
I was in geology and atia was in geochemistry.
So I was crazy about volcanoes, she was crazy about volcanoes,
and so we loved each other after,
it's an aftereffect of loving volcanoes.
When we went to Vulcano, in Italy,
we were a group of friends, we were students at this time in geology,
in geochemistry, and so on.
So we stayed at the foot of the volcano and we were making a lot of research,
but with a very low amount of money.
And I remember that we don't had so much clothes at this time,
but those gasses are so acid that our clothes were completely burned
with a lot of holes in it because of the gases.
So, after two or three days we were looking really like beggars.
From the start, the raffts photographed their fieldwork.
Soon, films and photos became their bread and butter.
Through the lens,
they would share their passion for volcanoes with the entire world.
Iceland, 1973.
The isle of Heimacy was abandoned in a single night.
On this empty stage, the raffts stood spellbound.
My work is different from other volcanologists
because, uh, when I see an eruption,
sometimes it's so nice that I just drop my instruments, and look.
That is to say, I cannot only study the eruption.
I want also to film volcanoes, to show it to other people.
So, I am as much interesting in aesthetic than in science.
As was often the case.
The raffts were the only foreign filmmakers on the scene.
Atia and Maurice had no children, no academic appointments.
Nothing to tie them down.
One year they circled the globe eight times.
Tanzania, 1988.
They shot the first footage of lava flows at a unique volcano called Lengai.
I think, really, to see Lengai
from near is something that is outside the earth.
I have never seen such an unusual volcano than this one.
And what is very peculiar for this volcano is that those lava are black,
it's not mud, it's lava.
And once you see those black lava flows going the here
and there in this crater,
24 hours after emission those black lava became white.
We were very surprised by the fluidity of this lava
and with this low temperature because it's only 500 degrees Celsius.
And to take this samples of lava with this spoon.
And what was very exciting also that
in the night it was red, like other lava.
The raffts never denied the dark side of volcanoes.
The face of human suffering. The numbing devastation.
For UNESCO, they began producing safety films on volcanic hazards,
shown around the world.
Footage of aftermath was impressive,
but the raffts aimed to capture pyroclastic flows in action.
Alaska, 1986.
A close encounter on the slopes of Augustine produced amazing footage
and whet their appetite for more.
We have seen so much big eruptions that now
we wanted to see bigger and bigger and bigger
and these don't happen so often, so, sometimes we have to wait,
a one year or even two years to see something really enormous
and more enormous it is, better it is for me.
The quest leads them to Mount Unzen in 1991.
They set up camp inside the evacuation zone
indifferent to the possible danger.
I am never afraid.
Because I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years, that
even if I doe tomorrow, I don't care.
On June 3rd, Maurice, atia, and a bevy of journalists move to a valley
about two miles from the summit
It's a fatal miscalculation.
Something triggers a pyroclastic flow
about ten times bigger than all that came before.
Within moments, it overwhelms the valley.
By the time a TV camera I the village record this scene,
Maurice, atia and 41 others are dead.
Surely, no one loved volcanoes better than Maurice and atia rafft.
Every time we marvel at their films,
we are seeing the world through their eyes.
And for a moment, it's as though they are with us again.
November 13th, 1985.
A Colombian volcano, Nevado del Ruiz erupts around nine p. M.
Part of its summit glacier melts.
Water cascades down canyons, stripping them of soil, trees, boulders.
Soon, the mudflow is 130 feet deep.
Just before midnight, nearly 30 miles from the volcano,
it engulfs a city called Armero.
23,000 people are buried alive.
Only weeks earlier, scientists had surveyed the volcano
and determined Armero was at risk.
Somehow, their report was shelved.
Yet a simple evacuation plan could have saved thousands.
On the ruins of Armero, volcanologists vowed, "Never again."
One year later, the US geological Survey helped create a unique program.
Fifty miles from Mount Saint Helens,
the Cascades Volcano Observatory
is home base for the Volcano crisis Assistant Team.
With a cache of portable monitoring equipment,
the five-man team can mobilize at a moment's notice.
Hey guys, I just got a request from Bob Tilling.
A mission begins when a foreign nation asks for help
in assessing a volcanic threat.
Andy Lockhart has ten years experience in rapid response.
If there is a typical mission,
it would consist of getting the call on Friday afternoon,
going to the books,
finding our if it's a volcano that we don't know much about.
If it's a full blown response we'd take an entire observatory.
We'd take all of the sensors,
all of the computers and that takes some putting together.
Lockhart and his teammates have seen action
at more than 15 volcanoes in 13 countries.
Their most memorable mission took them to the Philippines.
April 2nd, 1991. Fifty five miles northwest of Manila.
Plumes of steamare spotted at the summit of Mount Pinatubo
by tribesmen who have lived on its slopes for generations.
They've never seen anything like this.
Word reaches Ray Punongbayan,
director of the Philippine Institute
for Volcanology and Seismology in Manila.
It has 4 seismometers near the volcano.
They reported that they were recording
over 400 volcanic quakes and that's unusual.
Right then and there,
I said that something unusual is happening inside the volcano.
The reports arouse concern at Clark Air Base
just 15 miles form Pinatubo.
At the request of the US Air force and the Government of the Philippines,
a team from the US geological Survey arrives at Clark on April 23rd.
They begin briefing a Crisis Action Team
directed by Colonel Richard Anderegg.
I think I was like most people, I didn't know a lot about volcanoes
until the United States Geological Survey Team came here
it was a total educational process for me.
I had, you know, when I thought of a volcano,
I thought of a volcano like in Hawaii
where the lava flows out at a nice leisurely pace
and people take pictures of t and it's a, a very pretty thing to watch.
A joint U.S. Philippine science team sees a different picture form the air.
Pinatubo has no written history of eruptions,
but it's surrounded by huge deposits of ancient pyroclastic flows.
Lockhart and his teammates see the threat in a whole new light.
For two weeks,
they install a monitoring network on ridges around the volcano.
Lockhart outfits each station with a radio transmitter
that sends data to a makeshift observatory on Clark.
Pintubo's activity increases daily.
The science team urges local authorities to consider evacuations.
It's a big responsibility in the sense that you
are causing people to move out of their abode
and transfer to evacuation centers
and suffer there and wait for something to happen and,
if nothing happens, then, uh, our reputation is at stake.
So, we were very careful about that.
June 5th. Swarms of earthquakes prompt a level 3 alert:
Eruption possible within two weeks.
Twenty thousand Filipinos living within six miles of the summit
are ordered to relocate to temporary shelters.
But the Air force stays put.
Scientists brief the Senior Officer at Clark, General William Studer.
They admit there is a chance the volcano may not erupt at all.
June 7 th.
Pintubo releases clouds of ash.
The science team issues a level 4 alert:
Eruption possible within 24 hours.
Most ominous is the appearance of a plug of thick lava
the kind that generates pyroclastic flows.
General Studer wants to see it for himself.
Lockhart remembers his conversation with another scientist.
The general says, God, that's a lot of ash!
And Hoblitt says, that's nothing!
And he points out these big ignimbrite sheets,
these things that look like a Japanese parasol stretching out ten kilometers
in every direction from the volcano and says,
See these big sheets out here,
this is what this volcano does when it erupts.
And then we wheel around in the helicopter and he says,
There's your base down there.
And you could see it very obviously at the leading edge
of one of these sheets that came down that valley.
And so we headed back to the base.
And the general says to Jeff Grime, he says, uh, 'Do it tomorrow.'
With those words, Studer orders the evacuation of Clark.
One June 10th,
some 14,000 Americans leave for a Navy facility, 25 miles away.
A small security force, and the science team stay behind.
After the base was evacuate on June 10th,
we felt two ways about it.
One, that it could happen any time and the people were gonna be safe.
On the other hand,
now that the base was evacuate, the clock was really starting to tick.
A century of volcanology is put to the rest.
From afar, an entire nation awaits the unknown.
June 12th, 8:51 am.
The wait is over.
Pintubo blows an ash column nearly 12 miles into the sky.
Communities fifty miles away are showered with ash, and sand.
Eruptions continue for two days.
The evacuation radius is enlarged.
More than 80,000 people leave their homes.
Clark radar now shows a major typhoon headed straight for the Philippines.
Exhausted from round-the-clock shifts,
the science team suspects the worst is yet to come.
June 15th, 2:00am.
Pintubo's finale begins.
At dawn, pyroclastic flows stream down the volcano's flanks.
There's concern its entire summit may be collapsing.
Ash fall turns 10 am black as midnight
When the typhoon comes ashore, rain and ash mix like wet concrete.
Continuous blasts overwhelm monitoring stations.
It's time to consider the possibility
that pyroclastic flows might reach Clark.
I went out to look out the front door.
And I was standing there looking onto the darkness.
You could see some runway lights about a quarter mile away from us,
looking towards Pintubo.
Little line of red lights.
And I thought, well, if it comes down thisfar,
it'll, it'll cut those lights.
And if it cuts those lights, I'll run like hell towards the back of the room.
And that's about 400 yards if it's coming 60 miles an hour,
that'll give me about enought time to make it to the back of the room
for whatever it's worth.
And that was the most terrified I think I've ever been,
standing there looking at those lights listening to that eruption.
Around 2pm,
the largest explosion yet knocks out all bit one of the monitoring stations
I noticed that without much big ado and really no organization,
each of the volcanologist was making sure he had his napsack packed
with the kinds of things that
if he was going to have to leave he could grab very quickly.
And when that particularly larg eruption occurred
about three of those guys turned around and picked up their bags off the floor
and they weren't slowing down when they went out the door.
So, I figured if it was good enough
for them it was good enough for the rest of us.
Clark is finally abandoned.
Around midnight, the eruption is over.
By morning, people return to towns crushed by ash.
Collapsed buildings claim 300 lives.
But tens of thousands are saved in the largest evacuation
ever staged as a result of eruption forecasts.
For volcanology, it's an unprecedented success.
Still, Pintubo's summit is gone,
in the largest eruption on Earth on half a century.
Over two cubic miles of debris blanket the landscape.
Rain wreaks havoc with those loose deposits.
In the days after the eruption, mudflows claim hundreds of lives.
With each typhoon season,
mudflows claim more homes and more lives.
Some two millions people have been affected.
Echoes of the eruption are likely to plague the region
well into the 21 st century.
Today, Pintubo sleeps again.
But for how long?
The earth harbors some fifteen hundred potentially dangerous volcanoes.
More than half a bullion people live within their reach.
To live on harmony with volcanoes
may be little more than wishful thinking.
But for better or worse, we could not exist without them.
If not for the fire within, the earth would be a barren sphere,
worn smooth as a blue marble.
Volcanoes provide the lifeblood of our planet.
They build mountains, and create new land.
Their fireworks recycle life giving gases and minerals.
Most atoms in our bodies were once inside the Earth.
Volcanoes brought these atoms to the surface.
No matter where we live, we have all been touched by fire.