(Infocom) — On July 29, 1968, the Arenal Volcano’s first eruption killed 89 people. Thousands of cattle also died from lava and ashes, and material damages were in the millions of colones.

 

Forty years after the eruption, all of Costa Rica, but especially the towns surrounding the volcano (which is right of the border between Alajuela and Guanacaste provinces), remembered the event that changed the region’s geography and lives forever.

 

That eruption certainly took the neighbors by surprise. The mountain, which they admired for its beauty, was not to be feared, as nobody knew it of its volcanic activity.

 

The materials that Arenal spewed four decades ago spread for kilometers, and the lava and rocks that came out of the crater then and in later eruptions have made the mountain 92 meters (some 280 feet) taller than what it was back in 1968. Arenal is now 1,721 meters tall, for an average growth of six meters per year.

 

Volcanologists have warned about the dangers that Arenal, a very young and active volcano, still pose, and that visitors should be careful near the mountain.

 

But the volcano’s beauty and the impressive natural fireworks shows it puts on from time to time continue to attract thousands of national and foreign tourists, who visit the area hoping the clouds will clear so they can see this majestic shape in its entirety