{"id":4703,"date":"2017-03-24T09:49:19","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T13:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4703"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:23:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:23:41","slug":"columbia-mudslide-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/03\/24\/columbia-mudslide-1986\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia Mudslide, 1986"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In November 1985, the eruption of Nevado Del Ruiz in Columbia caused a massive mudslide which took an estimated 25,000 lives. Such sheer wreckage is hard to comprehend. Stalin famously said that one death is tragedy, a thousand a statistic. How does one get past the number to all the tragedies it represents?\u00a0 We need focal points to even attempt such a thing.\u00a0 When the Miami Herald sent Michell duCill and Carol Guzy to cover this event, this was their mission, though they probably couldn’t imagine what was in store for them there. “You’re hiking and walking, and you get to the point where it’s mud and you’re walking on bodies,” Guzy recalled. “It’s pretty grueling.”<\/p>\n

The images of devastation would see both duCill and Guzy awarded\u00a0 her first Pulitzer prize. DuCill would go on to win another; Guzy would garner three more.\u00a0 In one chilling image,\u00a0 we see a charred arm jutting up from the hardened mud.\u00a0 It is arched back like a marathon runner’s; yet it stands alone like the bent bough of a plant growing out of cement.\u00a0 In another photograph, a man cradles the bent-up body of a mud-caked boy in front of a helicopter, a male Madonna in a running\u00a0piet\u00e0.\u00a0 “Sometimes I would just rage inside seeing the helplessness,” Guzy remembered.\u00a0 “Just to be able to deal with this I would seek out those moments of humanity and courage.”\u00a0 Such a moment of courage in the face of helplessness was that of thirteen-year-old Omayra Sanchez trapped in ash and concrete debris and neck-high water for three days.\u00a0 “No one could understand how they could be so close and holding her, and she was talking to us and talking to her mother.”\u00a0 Omayra was not saved.\u00a0 It seemed strange to the witnessing world that modern technology could transmit her final moments and yet, over 72 hours, could not deliver her from the clutch of the rubble.<\/p>\n

In 2015, the Pulitzer would again go to the coverage of landslide.\u00a0 The staff of the Seattle Times were awarded for their follow-up on the 2014 Oso mudslide that killed 43 people.\u00a0 The account delved into whether the disaster could have been avoided.\u00a0 This was instrumental in a $50 million lawsuit between victims’ families and the state and a timber company, as well as subsequent reforms in the timber industry.\u00a0\u00a0 A crib wall fence on state property had been holding back earlier landslides as the company had continued to harvest on the slope not far from the neighborhood that was buried.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Frank Fournier, who won the 1986 World Press prize for his photograph of Omayra Sanchez, said, “I believe the photo helped\u00a0 raise money from around the world in aid and helped highlight the irresponsibility and lack of courage of the country’s leaders.”\u00a0 This helped him brush aside, even welcome, the controversy around his photograph, as he was accused of being parasitic of the situation.\u00a0 Even though powerless to save her as Guzy and duCille and the emergency responders were, he was able to capture the moment in a powerful way, a way that moved people.\u00a0 This is a power that ought to be prized and protected, for what it can do in the world.\u00a0 Beyond giving such images the acclaim they deserve, we must recognize and guard the force of images that acts through our imaginations upon our wills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In November 1985, the eruption of Nevado Del Ruiz in Columbia caused a massive mudslide which took an estimated 25,000 lives. Such sheer wreckage is hard to comprehend. Stalin famously said that one death is tragedy, a thousand a statistic. How does one get past the number to all the tragedies it represents?\u00a0 We need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8875,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions\/8875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}