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Killed by Volcanoes

Map No. 248

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Of all the people killed by volcanoes between 1975 and 2000, 86% died in Colombia. Most of these people died in the town of Armero due to mud flows from the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, on 13th November 1985 - almost 22 thousand deaths were recorded there.

Volcanic activity can endanger human life in various ways: mud flows, lava flows, pyroclastic flows (super-heated toxic gas and debris), collapses and landslides, and the settling of ash and dust. Earthquakes and tsunamis caused by volcanic activity are not included here.

There were no deaths caused by volcanoes between 1975 and 2000 in 183 of the 200 mapped. Volcano-related deaths occurred most frequently in Indonesia, in 9 of the 26 years shown.

"Since the building was made of cement, I thought that it would resist, but the boulder-filled mud was coming in such an overwhelming way, like a wall of tractors, razing the city, razing everything ..." José Luis Restrepo, 1985

Territory size shows the proportion of all people killed by volcanoes between 1975 and 2000, that died there.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page