Santa Maria, Guatemala 1902
In October 1902, the Santa Maria erupted for the first time in recorded history. It was the first eruption from the volcano in at least 500 years but some suggest it might have been thousands of years since the last eruption. Like many other volcanic eruptions this one was foretold by a series of earthquakes. There was a major earthquake in January 1902 and several more throughout the year. Then on October 24th, 1902 the long dormant volcano was rocked with explosions. The largest of the explosions occurred in the first two days and these explosions ejected 5.5. cubic kilometers of magma. This is considered to be one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century with a VEI of 6 and thus rated “Colossal.”
The people near the volcano had no idea that the earthquakes they were experiencing were signs that the volcano was coming to life. At 6pm on October 24th cinders and ashes started falling over the city of Quetzaltenango. By 8pm a plume of black ash covered the sky generating twisters and lighting the darkness with thousands of lightning bolts. Winds carried debris as far as 800km or more. By 1am the eruption grew stronger with large rocks and debris falling as far as 14km away from the eruption, destroying entire towns. The eruption continued until 12am October 26th.
Since the people had no warning of the eruption there were no evacuations and many areas faced complete devastation. At least 5,000 were killed in the eruption, 1,000 more were killed by the outbreak of Malaria that occurred as a result of the eruption. The devastation was made worse by the destroyed crops and the dying cattle. There were food shortages and people without homes but there was no assistance from the Guatemalan government except for being able to import flour free of taxes for a few months.