THE ERUPTION OF VOLCAN DE FUEGO
The images below show the ruin of a village once known as San Miguel Los Lotes in Guatemala.
On June 3rd 2018, it was destroyed when the eruption of Volcán de Fuego released a lahar that buried the town in ash and killed many of its inhabitants. Some claim that over one thousand bodies could still be buried beneath the soil here, though few continue the search. The once busy town now lies silent and abandoned. After the area was deemed too dangerous for habitation, no attempt was made to rebuild. The possessions of the dead and displaced still litter the ruin.
I spent several months in 2023 documenting the consequences of the eruption and how it continues to impact people today.
Click on pictures to enlarge
A beekeeper from San Miguel los Lotes stands in a doorway at the farm where he now works. Though he escaped with his life, he lost his home and his brother to the disaster.
Pictured below is Padre Ruperto of Escuintla Cathedral - around half an hour’s bus ride from San Miguel Los Lotes. He gave the last rites to many of the unidentifiable bodies that were recovered from the site of the ruin and was one of the few formalised sources of support for people affected by the disaster.
“Nobody in the country was ready for something of that magnitude... There was no interagency co-ordination... We didn’t have the logistics in place - there were no buses... they didn’t have the training, they didn’t have the equipment, they didn’t have the medications required. They [the government] were not honest about it... they didn’t have anything, but they didn’t care. Basically, if you look at it that way, they didn’t care about what happened here.”
Anonymous emergency responder, speaking in August 2023. Some involved in the rescue operation believe that the official government death toll of 200 has been hugely deflated in an attempt to cover up corruption and incompetence that led to an unnecessarily high number of casualties. Many of those affected were low income, indigenous Guatemalans. Having been exiled to Mexico during the genocide and civil war, many of these people had only just resettled in their home country before being displaced once again by the volcano.
A farmer who still works in the shadow of the volcano
The volcanic soil beneath the volcano makes the surrounding area ideal for life - plants and crops flourish there
A blown out window in Los Lotes. Many of the houses lie more or less untouched since the eruption.
A fireman's helmet in Antigua, half an hour from the eruption.
Fireman's gloves. As there is no public funding for emergency services in Guatemala, almost all of the firemen who responded to the disaster were unpaid volunteers.
Nur, head of the municipal fire department in Antigua, Guatemala. He's been a volunteer firefighter for decades.
A survivor of the eruption and previous inhabitant of San Miguel los Lotes. She lost a home and several family members to the disaster.
Don Abraham pictured with his guitar. Had he not been playing in another town at the time of the eruption, he likely would have been among those killed.
The guitar that saved Don Abraham's life.