ABSTRACT
On the night of November 13, 1985, about twenty-six thousand people were killed by the eruption of the Ruiz volcano in Colombia. These people would not have perished if they had walked a short distance from their homes to higher ground. Why didn’t they do this? Why didn’t they know they could do this? The answer to these questions is complicated. An international team of well-qualified volcanologists had, in fact, studied the coming eruption of Ruiz for over a year before the disaster and had prepared accurate maps showing threatened areas. Their survey was presented to the local government, but nothing was done. Personally, I was very frustrated when I studied this historic tragedy, and also sad. Good science is not enough, I thought to myself.
