An IAVCEI commentary on the Galeras Tragedy

Abstract

The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) views the Decade Volcanos Project as an integral part of its efforts, outlined in full by Barberi et al. “1990”, during the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). The project is only one of several proposed IAVCEI activities for the IDNDR. The IAVCEI Executive Committee wishes to express its sadness and regret that the lives of colleagues were lost during the Galeras eruption in pursuit of the goals of the Decade Volcanos Project.Significant advances have been made in recent years in monitoring restless volcanos and in predicting, in a general sense, new periods of eruption. The behavior of magma beneath volcanos can be monitored by a wide range of techniques, and there have been some notable successes in predicting the timing of explosive outbursts, for example, at Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in June 1991. However, the recent tragedies at Unzen (Japan, 1991), Galeras (Columbia, 1993), and most recently, Mayon (Philippines, 1993), bring into sharp focus the hazardous and unpredictable nature of active volcanos. These events illustrate that scientists still have much to learn before they develop a clear understanding of how volcanos work and how volcanic eruptions can be predicted accurately—particularly single, sharp, explosive events such as that on Galeras January 14.