Armero - La Ciudad Blanca

Once a prosperous city at the epicenter of Colombias cotton industry Armero earned the epithet “La Ciudad Blanca”. Little did the population of 31 000 know that the city’s geographic location was everything but a safe place to live.

Five sixths of Armero’s population was lost in the aftermath of the eruption of the volcano Nevado del Ruiz on the 13th of November in 1985. The heat from the eruption melted the icecap of the volcano and created a massive lahar which reached Armero within 45 minutes. Since the tragedy occurred at night eyewitnesses states that the only way to tell the size of the 15 meter high mud-wall traveling towards them at 70 km/h, was by the headlights of the tumbling cars. The surviving population has been relocated to the adjacent towns of Lérida and Armero-Guayabal. Armero was never rebuilt and the cotton industry never returned, leaving the survivors with very little.