On the day I ran off to pay the fees for my new work Visa, 4 hours south of Quito something big was about to happen. I arrived at work early on Friday 28th May, 2010. I was in by 8am and started immediately on the processing of seismic data from the Tungurahua Volcano.
In January this particular volcanic zone had kicked into life, producing hundreds of explosions, ejecting material and showing increases in deformation and gas production. A few months later however, it went quiet without ever actually erupting. Then we saw nothing, not a single explosion, until the 26th May, 2010. Just two days earlier a large bang was heard from the volcano and it concerned us. It wasn´t followed by anything else that day but a large expolsion like the one we saw that day is enough to make any volcanologist double check their seismic signals. It was sudden, unexpected and we didnt really know what it´s significance was. We found out two days later.
At about 8.30am I leave to sort out my visa - I still had to pay my fees so off I went, perhaps for the 800th time, to the immigration office. By the time I had returned at about 10.30am - Tungurahua Volcano had erupted (above photo courtesy of Robert Gibson, who sent all of us at the Instituto some amazing snaps).
The Instituto Geofisico was pretty chaotic. People were running around all over the place. Data was coming in fast from all angles as our seismic instruments scratched little squiggly lines frantically. Many people were already packing their gear to head down there. For me however, I was responsible for seismic processing of this volcano and as data was speedily coming through I was assigned to start making calculations, graphs and tables of the many explosions that were starting to appear. I spent that day continually calling my boss, Mario, updating him on his cell phone on what the signals were doing and what the graphs were showing - as he drove down to the volcano.
The press got word pretty much straight away and so within perhaps an hour they were in talking to the Institute Director , Hugo Yepez. Camera´s were everywhere filming our instruments and recording interviews for the Ecuadorian news. I admit I spent a small amount of my time trying to get my face on TV. The news of the eruption eventually made it world-wide, appearing on the front page of the BBC website.
Over the next few days the volcano was in its most active phase. Explosions increased to hundreds per day. I couldnt keep up with it. The explosions sent out shock waves, which caused windows to brake in towns around the volcano. An immediate evacuation was put in place on some of those small villages. Pyroclastic flows were observed and an ash cloud rose from the active crater which was later blown south-east, covering large parts of the coast and Ecuador´s largest city, Guayaquil, in a fine layer of ash. For a few days, airports were shut in the south of the country, halting some internal flights and a few heading to Peru. Coincidentally, at around the same time period a large volcanic eruption in Guatemala caused chaos in flights heading north out of Ecuador, so the country was essentially sandwiched between two volcanic ash clouds, causing mayhem.
Over the following days activity slowed down, but it wouldn´t be until June 15th more or less, that the volcano really went quiet again. Everyday, even now (at the end of June), we still have meetings on Tungurahua, trying to understand what the volcano is doing and what it might do in the future. We can certainly not say that the volcano has finished it´s erupted sequence, but for now, it is at least taking a rest.
There was only one fatality caused by the most recent eruption at Tungurahua. A man in Guayaquil, a city some hours south of the volcano, fell off his roof while trying to sweep off the accumulation of ash!!! Volcanic eruptions can have far reaching effects and often in the most unexpected ways.
For all of us here at the Institute, our job is certainly not over. We will continue to watch closely over the coming months to see what this active volcano does next. For us volcanologists - it has already taken us on quite a ride.
Sunday 27 June 2010
Tungurahua Volcano Blows Its Top
A Country Of Beaurocracy, A Man On A Motorbike & A Volcanic Ash Cloud - All Intertwined In Deciding My Fate!!!
How difficult is it to obtain a Visa??? Well, I can confidently tell you now - that if its a work Visa for Ecuador - its damn difficult. If your thinking of applying for one you will need the following three things just to get you started:
1. The patience of a spider.
2. Some initial hair before you begin the process (as you will lose it by the end).
3. Some amazing people to help you out when everything looks bleak and your need is greatest.
Here is the fiasco I went through in trying to obtain my work Visa.........
Initially, your gonna need a 6 month tourist Visa. If you dont have this to begin with then you cant transfer over to a work Visa later. It´s purely for the purpose of government money making. With the tourist Visa at hand, you then have 6 months to get your work Visa. You of course need a ton of documents to obtain it, far to may to list here, but one that is crucial - is a work contract. Without it, theres little point in even heading down to the immigration office.
This was a problem for me because the University which I work for (EPN) couldn´t get out work contracts until the budget for the new year had been released - and naturally, it hadn´t been released. The months ticked by.............
On the final month of my current Visa, things started to happen at the University, yet it wasn´t until just under two weeks before my Visa expired that it finally came through. Here´s the deal. If you can get all the paper-work to the immigration office and it is accepted for processing by the final day of your Visa, then your okay - you either get your new Visa or you get some number of days to pack your stuff and leave the country. However, if you can´t get all your bits together in time then you have to leave before your Visa runs out or you wind up becoming an illegal and risk the chance of jail, deportation and a hefty fine. Iv´e seen this happen to a friend of mine - Ravi, some months ago. So, when I finally recieved my contract 11 days before my Visa was up, I just prayed that I had all the correct documents to get my application in.........here is the chain of subsequent events. The deadline day for my Visa was Tuesday 25th May 2010.
Friday 14th May (11 days before Visa expires): I head down to the immigration office with a friend, Silvana. She speaks good English and of course Spanish, and she kindly said she would help me out, just in case there were any problems. She also kindly drove down to the office as it was quite far away. Unfortunately we find out that it is the wrong office - it is only for people applying for work Visa´s that are indefinate, all other Visa´s have to be applied at a different address. We then come out of the office to find Silvana´s car being towed. The rest of the afternoon was spent tring to get it back.
Monday 17th May (8 days before Visa expires): Silvana and I walk to the right immigration office. They tell me I am missing three things. Two of them are very simple to get, in fact I have one of them that very same day. The other I obtain a few days later. However, the final document I need is my University Certificates, first to be notarised and then to have an apostille placed on them. This is essentially a government stamp to say they are genuine. The documents are in England and I now have just 8 days left to get this process done and then for the documents to be posted out to me here in Ecuador, otherwise I have to start packing my bags.
You can post the certificates out to the office in England but that takes time, of which I didn´t have. It would thus mean someone would need to go to the office and hand it in - in which case it can be done in just 90 mins. The office though, is in Milton Keynes - an hour and a half drive north of London and I now needed someone to take them there.
Luckily for me, a very dear friend of mine and my parents said that he would take on the challenge. His name is Frank Gilbert, a man of nobility, fortitude and superior qualities above us all.
Tuesday 18th May (7 days before Visa expires): Frank, a real man on a mission heads straight over to the notary to first get my documents approved by a solicitor.
Wednesday 19th May (6 days before Visa expires): The masterful Frank jumps on his motorbike and heads for the M1. At unbelievable speed, he reaches Milton Keynes and gets the apostille on my University Certificates. Before returning he successfully completes his mission by getting the documents to DHL delivery service, where my papers would now have to travel across the globe - and fast.
Frank´s mission was over. I would here like to thank him personally for his incredible speed and efficiency in helping me out on this. He will go down in the Alex Steele book of legends. He is a hero to many but especially - a hero to me.
Friday 21st May (4 days before Visa expires): You can track your DHL package online and over the next few days thats exactly what I did. My hands were now in DHL´s hands and I admit that I wasn´t really very happy about that. Perhaps the most ironic part of this story is that the only real reason that DHL would fail to get my documents out to me in time, the last pieces of paper to finally get my application in - so I can continue to work as a Volcanologist out here in Ecuador, was a potential delay due to the volcanic ash cloud that was spreading over Europe from the Icelandic volcano that not even a volcanologist can say the name of.
My package travelled across the world, covering two hemispheres and 5 countries in all. It made it to sunny Barbados, across Venezuela and through Panama. It finally made it to the depot in Quito, Ecuador on the Friday. I then hoped it would be delivered the same day. I was wrong. I called the office to find out that the delivery guy was ill and it was scheduled to come out to me the following Thursday. What they were basically saying to me was that they can get a package across a planet in 48 hours but then it would take them 6 days to get it three blocks down the road. I didn´t have 6 days to wait so I rushed down to the office to pick it up. Eventually the documents were in my hand, two apostilled certificates, complete with fancy purple ribbon and a sealed mark - oh how it was worth the wait. It was the final piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately for me it was now the weekend and typically it was also a public holiday in Ecuador on Monday. It would thus mean that it would come down to the final day for me - my D-Day, the last chance. I would have to get them to accept all my documents for my application or otherwise I would have about 12 hours to leave the country..........and I hadnt even packed!!!
Tuesday 25th May (Visa expires at midnight): I didnt say goodbye to people or even pack my bag. I hadn´t made any arrangements to leave the country - I guess I was purely acting on hope. I returned to the immigration office and gleefully handed them my papers. The man in the office looks at my passport, sees my visa runs out today, doesn't seem too bothered but does lift his eyes towards the ceiling and makes some small tutting noise. He tells me however that I am missing one more thing. You wont believe what it was (well you would believe it). The University certificates with all the fancy ribbons etc, was apparently not good enough - they wanted the notary and apostille of my certificates - NOTARISED, here in Ecuador. Off I go again - and I now only have hours left.
I get it done of course. I wasnt gonig to let this final hurdle stop me. The documents were notarised and with about one hour before the immigration office closed, I got my documents in. A few days later I had a brand new work Visa. It allows me to stay in Ecuador for another year but more impoartantly it allows me to continue doing what I do - monitoring volcanoes.
I would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved in helping me get my Visa, a single stamp in my passport that ended up costing me a whole load of grief. If you plan on obtaining a work Visa here in Ecuador, I suggest going back to the start and reading this again, and then just make sure - that the job you are applying for, really is worth losing all your hair over.
For me, life could continue with what I hoped would be some sort of normality..................I was wrong of course!!!
