CHOLULA,
Mexico -- Rígida Torres stood at the door of the emergency
shelter and looked up at Mexico's smoldering volcano.
Popocatépetl
never had harmed anyone in her pueblo, Torres said. So why couldn't
she go home?
"I'm
not afraid. I think the worst is over," she said, shrugging
her narrow shoulders. "It's just throwing out ash."
Mexico's
volcanologists paint a different picture -- apicture Torres
and many other indigenous people in thisregion refuse to accept.
Some of
the scientists predict there will be more milderuptions. Others
say Popocatépetl (pronouncedPoh-poh-kah-TEH-peh-til)
could produce devastating explosions that would spill rivers
of superheated,fast-moving gas and debris down the 17,887-foot
volcano'ssides.
All of them
agree that Popocatepetl, one of the world'smost active volcanos,
is certain to erupt again.
Roberto
Quass, director of Mexico's National DisasterCenter, warned
Thursday that the next eruption isimminent and placed scores
of communities in three states on maximum alert.
"We
are faced with the threat of a possible explosion thatwould
be more severe than the one we have already had,"said José
Castillo, a researcher at Cupreder, a Pueblastate organization
established to help prevent human lossin disasters. "It
is a mistake for people to return because the volcano's
situation is still critical."The contrast between the scientific
warnings and the beliefs of the 200,000 people who live
on the flanks of the volcano is striking.
Right now,
most of the people from villages closest to the crater are living
in emergency shelters, where federal and state authorities
took them Monday night after Popocatépetl's biggest
eruption since 800 A.D.
Yet even
after seeing the frightening eruption of incandescent rocks
and lava, most of the people insisted the mountain simply
was blowing off smoke. As soon as excitement died, they
began pressing officials to let them go home for Christmas.
The way
they see it, the huge mountain they affectionately call
"Don Gregorio" never would hurt them.
Juana Pérez
has experienced a lot of frightening things in her 51 years.
The volcano, Pérez said, is not one of them.
"What
people say is more than what happens," said Pérez, a
mother of eight. "What Popo does is very little.
"Why
is it going to frighten us? You tell me."
Awaiting
major eruption
Beneath
Popocatépetl's now placid surface, the volcano continues
to rumble.
Tremors
are occurring more and more frequently, telling scientists
that molten lava is rising rapidly to the surface.The dome of
lava inside the crater is growing so quickly thateven volcanologists
are astounded. The crater has become a gaping hole the
size of four football stadiums that could hold 100,000
people each.
"The
crater will keep filling with lava, and it will keep exploding,"
said Claus Siebe, a volcanologist at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico and a noted expert on Popocatépetl.
"Erroneously, people think that when lava comes out,
there is a release of pressure. The increase in the dome
is interrupted by these explosions, but that does not mean
the dome stops growing."
The question
is precisely how violent the next explosions will be.
In volcanic
terms, Monday night's eruption was small, said Siebe, ranging
from 2 to 2.5 on a scale of 10.Popocatépetl historically
has had a major eruption,ranging from 6 to 7 on the volcanic
scale, every 1,000 to 3,000 years.
The last
major eruption was 1,200 years ago. It partially buried pyramids
and propelled mud and debris 30 miles into a plains area
that is now the capital of Puebla state.
If Popocatépetl
has another major eruption, scientists predict, the explosion
could trigger several terrifying events:
A fast-moving
mixture of superheated gas, pumice, rock and ash capable of
leaping over hills and mountains could move across the surrounding
countryside at 100 mph.
A column
of rock and ash could shoot up 10 miles into the atmosphere,
showering tons of ash and hot stones on nearby villages and
crushing wood houses and tin roofs.
A thick,
heavy mixture of water and fragmented rocks could take on the
consistency of wet concrete, flowing down slopes at up to 40
mph and hitting houses with enough force to flatten them.
The most
disturbing fact is that major eruptions of Popocatépetl
appear to be increasing in frequency. What scientists do not
know, Siebe said, "is how the big ones start."
"The
most probable scenario is that we will continue to see the kind
of eruptions we've had this week," he said. "But with
Popocatépetl, you never know."
Fire-breathing
being
While scientists
use high-tech instruments to measure the volcano's tremors,
Epifanio Alonso and his followers take offerings up the slopes
to make peace with "Don
Gregorio." To them, the volcano is a living, fire-breathing
being.
Alonso is
a peasant farmer who said he was chosen when he was still a
boy to receive messages from the volcano. Now 39,he is a spiritual
leader, a rainmaker, a "missionary of the seasons Alonso
said he has looked "on the divine face of Popocatépetl."
For Alonso
and thousands of other descendants of Nahuatl Indians, God and
rain and the volcano are intertwined. The Indians who lived
on the volcano's flanks in pre-Columbian times believed Popocatépetl
was the home of Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain.
Once, Alonso
dreamed the volcano was a church, a sacred place full of angels
with wings "just like in the drawings." Another time,
he saw the volcano as "a huge man, fat, an enormous man,
more than 70 years old who speaks Spanish and has black hair."
Alonso also
has dreamed about the end of the world. But he tells people
that "if there is going to be a problem, I will receive
a warning. I have faith in God that he is going to let us know."
Mexican
officials are trying to fight these ancient beliefs with rational,
scientific explanations of the volcano's danger.
President
Vicente Fox has tried to bridge the gap. In a nationally televised
interview earlier this week, Fox likened the monitoring of the
volcano to the intensive care treatment of a patient in the
hospital. All sorts of instruments are hooked up to Popocatépetl
to monitor the vital signs that are invisible to the naked eye,
he said.
But officials
admit they are waging an uphill battle.
"We
still have a lot to do," Ramón Peña, director
of Puebla's Popocatépetl Operating Plan, said in an interview
before the most recent eruption. "There are places we go
to explain about the volcano one time and that is enough. But
there are places that we go back to 10 times and it doesn't
work."
In the pueblo
of Santiago Xalitzintla, renowned rainmaker Antonio Analco has
brushed off the officials' pleas that residents evacuate. Even
as Popocatépetl erupted Monday night, Analco resolutely
remained in his house, insisting the evacuation was unnecessary
and extreme.
Great
sense of roots
In San Nicolas
de los Ranchos, a town where people have grown accustomed to
watching Popocatépetl's crater glow red-hot at night,
city officials have resorted to unorthodox methods to convince
residents the threat is real.
Long before
Monday night's eruption, they used the walls of City Hall to
show videos of volcanic eruptions in other parts of the world
"so when we say they have to evacuate, they will go,"
said Mayor Abel Apanco. "There are people who have no idea
what an eruption is like."
The ideal
solution would be to find permanent new homes for the people
who live in the path of the volcano. But even if the Mexican
government had the money for such a massive project, Peña,
the volcano preparedness director, said it would not work.
"We
would create a tremendous social problem," he said. "If
we move them, they would lose their identity. Mexicans have
a great sense of roots. They want to die where they lived."
Apanco explained
it more simply.
"People
have their work here. They have their land," he said during
an interview before the recent eruption. "They have their
corn and their beans. They have their peaches and pears and
nuts.
"If
we go somewhere else, what are we going to do without houses
and without work? Even though we know we are running a big risk
of danger here, we cannot go anywhere else."
