The ancient ruins of the Mayan city of Tikal, the colonial charm of Antigua, the rugged peaks of the Fuego volcano and the magical atmosphere of the indigenous villages on Lake Atitlán. Guatemala is a very rich country, a crossroads of ethnic groups and traditions right where the two Americas touch.
Lying between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, the cradle of the ancient Mayan civilization is today a continuous alternation of very lively colors that paint the markets and the facades of the houses and the coffee, sugar cane and cocoa crops that develop as far as the eye can see in the plains. And then the dense rainforests, the colorful tropical flowers, the peaks of the many volcanoes.
Precisely about these, and their spectacular although sometimes disastrous eruptions, we spoke with Daniele Andronico, an INGV volcanologist who guided us to discover the geology of Guatemala and the incredible beauties that such a rich territory is able to offer, which look with the rigorous eyes of the scientist or with the dreamy ones of the traveler.
Daniele, what is Central America's structure from a volcanological point of view?
Central America is a geologically very active region. It is part of the Ring of Fire, the Belt of Fire which from the western coasts of the American continent, through the Pacific Ocean, reaches Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Zealand.
In Central America, three tectonic plates meet (and collide) which, due to the subduction and sliding movements to which they are subject, generate dynamics that make this region, and Guatemala in particular, one of the most active in the world from the point of seismic view. Furthermore, this conformation of the earth's crust has given rise in those areas to the formation of a volcanic arc between 15 and 20 km wide which produces a very varied, mainly explosive, volcanism: it includes volcanic calderas generated by large eruptions, basaltic cones and large stratovolcanoes which , according to some research, in the last 300 years they have emitted over 16 km3 of volcanics.
Your experience as a volcanologist in Central America mainly led you to discover Guatemala. What are the main volcanoes in the country?
In Guatemala, volcanoes are a very important part of the landscape and constitute a major tourist attraction, as well as an economic resource for the country. But they also represent a serious potential threat to the life of the populations most exposed to volcanic risk, which are not few... Just think that Guatemala is a relatively small country, with an area equal to about 1/3 of that of Italy , yet it has 37 volcanoes on its territory. Of these, 22 have been active in the last 10.000 years and about ten have erupted in history. Among the volcanoes that have had a strong impact on the area in the last 120 years are those currently in activity, namely Pacaya, Santa María and Volcán de Fuego.
Pacaya is the most easily accessible Guatemalan volcano and, therefore, also the most "touristy" of the active ones. The current cone is just over 2.500 meters high and was born about 800 years ago inside the "old" Pacaya caldera. Although it has also had long periods of inactivity, since 1961 the eruptive style of this volcano has become more similar to that of Etna and above all Stromboli: Pacaya, in fact, produces continuous Strombolian explosions periodically interrupted by lava flows mostly coming from by lateral fractures, with some more violent eruptive episodes that generate columns of ash up to a few kilometers high. Unlike what happens for our two volcanoes, however, about 10.000 people live in a dozen rural communities located within 5 km of the summit of Pacaya: they are therefore highly exposed to the threat of more energetic eruptions, the last of which it took place on May 27, 2010. During this eruption a large number of ballistics reached an extended area up to 6-7 km away, causing serious damage to the houses of the villages, and a 2-3 cm layer of ash and lapilli it covered the runway of La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, the capital's main airport, located over 20 km from the volcano.
Santa María, on the other hand, is a stratovolcano almost 3.800 meters high which in 1902 had a catastrophic Plinian eruption considered one of the most energetic in the world in the last 300 years. This eruption generated an eruptive column which reached a height of 34 km; its load of pyroclastites, transported by the wind, then spread laterally causing ash to fall up to 4.000 km away. However, the most devastating impact of this eruption is linked to the collapse of the south-western flank of the volcano, during which it is estimated that over 5.000 people lost their lives. Today on this flank, at the base of the 1902 crater, there is the Santiaguito, a complex of lava domes: the most recent vent has produced the so-called Caliente dome, whose activity consists in slow extrusions of blocks of lava which periodically feed lava flows very viscous. However, Santiaguito is famous and studied all over the world for its most common and ordinary eruptive activity, which consists of gas and ash explosions with a very variable frequency (from a few tens of minutes to a few hours) involving systems of fractures in ring form on the dome of the cathedral.
Finally, Fuego is also a stratovolcano almost 3.800 meters high, with a conical shape and steep sides in the highest portion of the building. The Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution has documented over 50 eruptions from 1524 to today, and among these at least 6 have been classified with a VEI (i.e. the volcanic explosivity index) equal to 4 on a scale ranging from 0 to 8 , therefore with an explosiveness considered high. The last eruption of VEI 4 del Fuego occurred in 1974 and produced an eruptive column over 20 km in height, associated with ash fall over a large area but also with partial lateral collapses causing pyroclastic currents that channeled in the ravines, of the long and narrow valleys "excavated" on the sides of the volcano. At the time the area was not as densely populated as today, so the eruption mostly caused damage to crops, but the greatest impact occurred in the following weeks and years due to the continuous mobilization of these pyroclastic materials by the rains torrential. Over the last 20 years the eruptive style of Fuego appears to have changed and persistent Strombolian activity is observed today, with lava fountaining and explosions that are interrupted by occasional higher energy paroxysmal eruptions associated with lava flows and pyroclastic currents. The last major paroxysmal eruption of Fuego occurred two years ago, on June 3, 2018.
In addition to these three main volcanoes in the country, in my opinion the Atitlán region should also be mentioned, with one of the most evocative volcanic landscapes in the world, dominated by the lake of the same name, Lake Atitlán, which occupies a volcanic caldera of over 15 km diameter. This caldera was formed about 85.000 years ago during a very violent eruption which, according to recent studies, was a super eruption classified VEI 8, i.e. the maximum on the volcanic explosivity index scale. Subsequent volcanic activity then gradually "built" three volcanoes over 3.000 meters high in or around the lake, namely the Atitlán volcano (which is the youngest and erupted several times even in the XNUMXth century), the San Pedro and the Tolimán, whose last eruptions are instead dated to an era prior to the Holocene.
Of all the Guatemalan volcanoes, which ones have you had the opportunity to study more closely?
In 2018, I was part of a multidisciplinary team of experts who, under the aegis of the European Community, responded to an international request for help from the government of Guatemala following the tragic June 3 eruption of Volcán de Fuego. This eruption officially caused 332 confirmed and missing victims, as well as the destruction of homes, infrastructure and rural areas. The mission was organized by the Emergency Response Coordination Center (ERCC), the heart of the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM), a sort of European Civil Protection which operates 24 hours a day to respond during emergencies of various kinds which take place inside or outside Europe, with economic aid but also technical-scientific assistance to the country affected by the disaster.
The team with which I left had the task of supporting the local authorities, in particular the National Civil Protection of Guatemala (CONRED) and the local institute that monitors seismic and volcanic activity and meteorological and hydrogeological disasters (INSIVUMEH). . We had been asked for assistance in the management of a network of infrasonic stations for monitoring the lahars, i.e. mudflows with a high destructive power which are fed by torrential rains which are very frequent in tropical regions and which transport large volumes downstream for several kilometres. of volcanic materials (and not only) with speeds of tens of kilometers per hour, and on the upgrading of the operations room (which in fact was non-existent), as well as an opinion on the evaluation of post-emergency effects and risk management in reconstruction.
In 2018, Al Fuego partly repeated what had already happened during the 1974 eruption I mentioned earlier, with the difference that forty years ago the area, as I said, was sparsely populated.
Furthermore, a few years before this experience at Fuego, between 2011 and 2012, with colleagues from the Rome 1 Section of the INGV we participated in an international expedition aimed at studying Santiaguito's activity. This experience was certainly very complete: at the time, and up until a few years ago, Guatemala was considered a dangerous country (in some periods, our Foreign Ministry even advised against departures) and I remember that we were forced to hire an armed escort to carry out our country activities… I also remember that to reach the volcanic areas to be studied we had to trek at high altitudes, on very steep paths, and we camped the first time at the foot of the Santiaguito volcanic dome complex and then on top of Santa María. From there, in the morning, when the sun rose, we would emerge from our tents placed at an altitude of 3.800 meters and covered with ice and, with thermal and high-speed cameras, we would record the activity of the Caliente cathedral which was below us, about 2,5km away. In the following days we even reached the summit area of Fuego, and here too we studied the explosive activity with our cameras, which was particularly intense and frequent in that period.
They were very intense experiences, not only from a strictly scientific point of view, but also because we had the opportunity to interact continuously with foreign colleagues both on the eruptive dynamics and on our personal experiences as volcanologists: I remember them as extremely interesting missions.
What level of awareness is there among the locals of volcanic risk?
Well, I can tell you an episode that certainly helps answer this question. In the hours and days following the 2018 Fuego eruption, official data from the Guatemalan government spoke of about 200 dead or missing; however this number was increased to 332 when a local humanitarian association, after interviewing the survivors of the community of San Miguel Los Lotes, reported the disappearance of about 2.900 people. This community had grown over the years on the side of the volcano without the local government authorities being able to correctly census the number of houses and inhabitants, and was completely erased, buried by pyroclastic deposits. In the local newspapers we read heartbreaking interviews given by the surviving family members, who had mobilized, in vain, once they learned of the authorities' intention to interrupt the operations to recover the bodies due to the precarious hygienic-sanitary conditions.
At the end of our experience there, we drafted a report which revealed, among the most relevant aspects, the inadequacy of the level of awareness of volcanic risk among the locals. And I can also tell you that, despite having analyzed the Fuego eruption, we are quite certain that the final conclusions reached by our analysis can also be applied to other volcanic areas of the country.
Il Fuego, in particular, includes three departments, with numerous rural municipalities and a very high poverty rate for over half of the inhabitants: the poverty of the population is considered an important risk factor which manifests itself with greater exposure and greater vulnerability to natural disasters, both due to the absence or precariousness of adequate infrastructures, and due to the presence of poor quality homes built with waste materials. This situation, then, is made even more serious by the strong educational and social deficiencies and the lack of territorial planning policies: the very fact that in 2018 the village of San Miguel Los Lotes was not known to the local authorities gives the exact measure of the problem…
Another interesting aspect in this sense, and which we realized while working there, is that communication between the local Civil Protection and the Institute that deals with seismic and volcanic surveillance was scarce, as well as the one that these two institutions acted towards the population.
So, to answer the question, the level of awareness of volcanic risk in Guatemala is unfortunately absolutely not up to the actual danger level of the volcanoes it hosts.
Is there anything that, on a personal level, has struck you most about Guatemalan culture?
Yes, many things… Even before my work, in 2007 I was on holiday in Guatemala for about a month, so I was lucky enough to live and visit the country both as a tourist and as a scientist. One of the most beautiful aspects of Guatemala is undoubtedly its nature, which is among the richest in the world.
There is a very varied fauna: it is easy to spot eagles and come across many different species of butterflies, but the encounter I will never forget was the one with a very poisonous snake on La Canaleta, a very steep path to reach the base of the Caliente cathedral.
The flora is also extremely rich, thanks to the great variety of habitats present in the country, but also to the favorable tropical climate: it ranges from very thick woods to virgin rainforests, with many varieties of flowers. There are extensive coffee crops, plantations of various types including avocados, a food widely used in the local cuisine.
Then I can't leave out everything that hiking has left me, with the paths we traveled to reach the three volcanoes we worked on which are extraordinary, very tiring but capable of opening up breathtaking landscapes before you.
As far as the local culture is more strictly concerned, however, I cannot forget the joy of the porters we "engaged" in 2011: they walked these steep and muddy paths with very modest shoes compared to our boots, carrying very heavy canvas sacks full of food and scientific equipment tied to the head with some sort of bandage.
Guatemala is also famous for the colorful local markets, for the traditional clothes worn by the population: also in this case there are many varieties, just think that each of the 22 departments of Guatemala is characterized by typical colors… Local handicraft products , fabrics and bags above all, are very colorful.
The country is also the land of the Mayas, so how can we fail to mention the area of the pyramids of Tikal, the largest of the ancient ruined cities of the Maya civilization: it is truly suggestive. Among other things, in Guatemala ceremonies, such as rites and processions, are still deeply felt, which derive precisely from those of the ancient lost civilization and which today coexist and coexist together with the very strong Catholic culture.
Certainly, however, the more "recent" past of the country also emerges from the Guatemalan culture, that of the Spanish domination which left traces in the architecture and buildings of the colonial era: even the smallest cities are in fact organized around the classic central square where the church and the town hall are located.
The people are generally very cheerful and friendly, most of the population is made up of indigenous people, also called "natives", the most direct descendants of the ancient Maya. There are many ethnic groups: over 20 languages are spoken in the country! This cordiality of the local people has meant that during the work experiences we could make a beautiful friendship with Armando, our volcanological guide on site who I always like to remember and who we then also invited here in Italy, in Stromboli: last year he was a guest for a couple of weeks at my house, here in Catania.
Has the Covid-19 emergency had an impact on your life as a researcher?
Well definitely, like on everyone's life. The most evident element for us researchers was perhaps the impossibility of traveling to participate in international conferences which for the first time were held entirely online, or were not held at all... Among these, I recall, for example, the Cities on Volcanoes which was supposed to be held in Crete, Greece, but was instead canceled and directly postponed to 2021.
In this sense, therefore, the greatest impact of this situation was in making it virtually impossible to speak face-to-face with people, with fellow researchers: we found ourselves having lots of chat and remote meetings, but in the long run this tired mode, being in front of a PC screen greatly increases the risk of becoming distracted, losing attention more easily and interacting much less and with less effectiveness.
Once this phase is finished, are you already planning to return to Guatemala?
Heh, good question! The hope is certainly that we can return to travel safely as soon as possible.
We have a collaboration with some American colleagues, so yes, I would certainly like to return to Guatemala, perhaps even in the context of international conferences, precisely to resume that interpersonal exchange on the sidelines of scientific discussions which is equally important for those who do my job it's interesting.
In Guatemala there is a beautiful city, a UNESCO heritage site, Antigua, the old capital destroyed by a terrible earthquake in 1773: it is set between three volcanoes (Fuego, Agua and Acatenango) and lends itself perfectly as a stage for international scientific conferences. Who knows if this dream will come true in the future…