Surviving Galeras
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
This true, up-close account of a volcano’s eruption “artfully blends science writing and history with pure, heart-pounding action” (Mark Bowden, bestselling author of Black Hawk Down).
In 1993, Stanley Williams, an eminent volcanologist, was standing on top of a Colombian volcano called Galeras when it erupted, killing six of his colleagues instantly. As Williams tried to escape the blast, he was pelted with white-hot projectiles traveling faster than bullets. Within seconds he was cut down, his skull fractured, his right leg almost severed, his backpack aflame. Williams lay helpless and near death on Galeras’s flank until two brave women—friends and fellow volcanologists—mounted an astonishing rescue effort to carry him safely off the mountain.
Surviving Galeras is both a harrowing first-person account of an eruption and its aftermath, and a look at the fascinating, high-risk world of volcanology, exploring the profound impact volcanoes have had on the earth’s landscapes and civilizations.
Even with improved, highly-sensitive measuring tools and protective equipment, at least one volcanologist, on average, dies each year. This book reveals how Williams and his fellow scientist-adventurers continue to unveil the enigmatic and miraculous workings of volcanoes and piece together methods to predict their actions—potentially saving many human lives.
“I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent book . . . [A] riveting story.” —Dava Sobel, author of The Glass Universe
“Popular science at its best.” —The New York Times
“[A] page-turner.” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Williams, a geology professor at Arizona State University, headed the team on the cone of Colombia's Galeras volcano when it erupted in 1993. Nine people were killed. Severely injured, Williams gained celebrity before he left the hospital, and his roles as expedition leader and media personality generated significant controversy. Williams sustained enough brain damage, he asserts, that he initially believed himself to be the sole survivor, which he promptly told reporters. Actually, several scientists survived, and Williams here acknowledges his slight. Though he insists either because of his injuries or for more nefarious reasons that the others are mistaken about critical elements to the story, his account appears flawed. He alleges that his personal conflict with seismologist Chouet (in 1991, with Williams present, Chouet introduced a method of predicting eruptions) kept him ignorant of Galeras's danger. In fact, Williams submitted a grant proposal to research prediction of eruptions just one month after Chouet's presentation. As to his claim that he merely let reporters state that he alone survived, readers only have to watch the February 12, 1993, broadcast of NBC's Nightly News to hear Williams himself make this pronouncement. The volcanic histories seem a vain attempt to substantiate a porous memoir. Though artfully written (with Montaigne, author of Reeling in Russia), this antagonistic telling so contradicts other survivors' accounts as to seem ludicrous. Illus. not seen by PW.
