Photo credit, DISNEY
The last photo of Katia and Maurice Krafft.
- Author, Vitor Tavares
- Role, BBC News Brazil
- Reporting from São Paulo
In 1985, an episode marked the life of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft.
Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz eruption killed more than 23,000 people in one of history’s greatest volcanic tragedies.
The town of Armero was completely buried and literally ceased to exist after the eruption melted the mountain’s glaciers, generating what are known as lahars: an avalanche of mud, dirt and debris volcanic.
At the time, volcano specialists tried to alert authorities to the risks of the impending eruption and the need to evacuate towns, but they were not heeded.
Maurice and Katia, already famous throughout the world for having “hunted” and recorded volcanoes on all continents, echoed this warning. But that’s not enough either.
“We were ashamed to call ourselves volcanologists,” Katia said in an interview at the time.
“My dream is for volcanoes to stop killing,” Maurice said.
Shocked by the tragedy, the couple decided they needed to do more than they had already done, namely to record the threatening volcanic activity up close to demonstrate its destructive power and convince the authorities of the risks involved.
In June 1991, they traveled to Japan to record the force of Mount Unzen’s eruption.
In the last images where they appear alive, Katia and Maurice look at the mountain, next to the camera. They died a few minutes later, he at 45, she at 49, and their bodies were found side by side.
“We all knew they were going to die in a volcano, and they knew it themselves,” Brazilian Rosaly Lopes, a NASA astronomer and volcanologist who met the couple at conferences and meetings, told BBC News Brazil. ‘events.
According to her, the two men were treated like stars in the world of volcanology.
Photo credit, DISNEY
The stunning footage the Kraffts have recorded over decades of work is featured in the documentary Fire of Love (translated into English in some countries as ‘Volcanoes: The Tragedy of Katia and Maurice Krafft’), which was nominated for an Oscar on Sunday .
In Latin America, the production directed by Sara Dosa can be viewed on the Disney+ streaming service.
love of fire
Katia and Maurice met in 1966, while studying at the University of Strasbourg, France. She was a geochemist, he a geologist. But they quickly discovered a common interest: volcanoes.
“We got into volcanology because we were disappointed with humanity. And since a volcano is bigger than people, we thought that was what we needed. Something beyond human understanding “, explains Maurice in an interview broadcast in the documentary.
He was considered more “media” than Katia.
It was post-war, with great scientific advances. In 1967, the tectonic plates were discovered, which made it possible to understand the mysteries of nature such as earthquakes and the formation of volcanoes.
In Iceland, in 1968, the Kraffts had their first experience of exploring volcanoes. From there, they began recording video and photo eruptions, which would become a source of income for the couple, who spent their lives on the roads.
“When you see an eruption, you can’t do without it, because it’s so big, so strong, that you have a feeling of insignificance,” Katia explains. Two years later, they got married and chose not to have children.
“They couldn’t have done what they did if they hadn’t been together. They had a relationship between the two of them, and between them and the volcanoes,” says volcanologist Rosaly Lopes.
Photo credit, DISNEY
In addition to the sale of part of the audiovisual material, Katia and Maurice filmed all the expeditions with the aim of reviewing the eruptions and studying them. And they start wanting to get closer and closer.
For Rosaly Lopes, the couple, even if they are not renowned for their academic production, left a great scientific and human heritage.
They filmed images from around the world showing lava, explosions and pyroclastic flows (a mixture of gas, volcanic material, ash and rock fragments ejected during eruptions) and the researchers used them to understand and model the behavior of volcanoes.
They also brought back “young” materials ejected during eruptions to study them in geophysical laboratories.
Photo credit, DISNEY
“But I think the main legacy is that of education, of teaching that volcanoes are very beautiful, but dangerous. And also that you can sometimes go to a volcano, near lava, without taking too much risk,” says Lopes, who has written a book about tourism opportunities in areas of volcanic activity.
Reds and grays
Katia and Maurice have adopted two classifications of volcanoes.
The “reds” are those that show “rivers” of lava and no strong explosions. These are the less dangerous ones that the Kraffts first explored.
The “greys” are the explosive volcanoes, which build up pressure and heat until their catastrophic release. These are the “killers”, less known and more difficult to access.
After the eruption of the “gray” volcano on Mount St. Helens in the United States, which killed 57 people in 1980, the couple decided to redirect their expeditions to the riskier ones.
They tackle eruptions in Alaska (USA), Indonesia and Colombia, where they record the damage from the Armero tragedy.
In June 1991, they learned that Mount Unzen in Japan was about to erupt. They go to the country and carry out a new mission, the last one.
At the time, Katia and Maurice decided to keep a safe distance from other scientists, journalists and firefighters. But a much stronger than expected pyroclastic flow killed 43 people, including the couple.
Marks on the floor after the tragedy indicate that Katia and Maurice were close to each other.
In the images shown in the documentary, mention is made of a text in which Maurice writes that he prefers a “short and intense life to a long and monotonous life”, thus justifying his hunt for volcanoes. And Katia, at one point, said: “If I have to die, I prefer to go with him”.
