Death in the Mud

When the residents of Montebello Poniente (pop 8,000) a suburb of San Salvador on the slopes of one of El Salvador s largest volcanoes, heard the rumblings shortly after dawn, they assumed that it was just another mild earthquake, the sort they had experienced many times before But then a boy ran down the town's main street knocking on doors and screaming: "The lava is coming, the lava is coming! He was wrong— the long-dormant volcano had not erupted—but the neighbors who heeded Ms warning were wise. Within minutes, an 8-ft-high wave of...