Superman III and Colombia
Part of the story in the film Superman III included a plot by the villain, Ross Webster, to devastate the country of Colombia.
In the film, the mechanism used to devastate Colombia was a satellite named Vulcan which had the ability to cause terrible floods:
 | "OK Vulcan here's what's goin' down. Like Ross the Boss says, Once Vulcan gets through doin' its demolition number there won't be one coffee bean left anywhere in Columbia to pick." |
 | The name Vulcan is the Roman name for the volcano god, and is the origin of our own word "volcano". |
| On 13 November 1985, some months after the Superman III film, a real volcano in Colombia, the Nevado del Ruiz, erupted. Floods and mud engulfed the town of Armero. |  |
 | 22,000 people lost their lives. It was the fourth deadliest volcano disaster in recorded history, after Tambora (1815), Krakatoa (1883), and Mount Pelee (1902). |
 | The text of Superman III refers to the victims being "in mud up to their necks". |
| The most horrific scenes of the actual disaster, shown around the world, were of the victims trapped in mud up to their necks. |  |
Shortly before the eruption, an international group of vulcanologists had visited the area. They had advised the Colombian authorities of the dangerous condition of Nevado del Ruiz, and recommended the evacuation of the area. This advice was not taken sufficiently seriously. One of the vulcanologists, Franco Barberi, was interviewed on the BBC Horizon program, The Curse of Vesuvious, televised on 1 April 1999. This is a part of the transcript of the Horizon program:
NARRATOR: In 1985 [shortly before the Nevado del Ruiz eruption] Franco Barberi travelled to Columbia to help monitor another restless volcano [Nevado del Ruiz]. He and others proposed a plan to evacuate thousands of people out of its path, but after his return to Italy Barberi received a letter from the Colombian authorities thanking him for his proposals which were not yet in place. The letter arrived one week after the eruption of Nevada del Ruez.FRANCO BARBERI: The Nevada del Ruez tragedy was certainly one of the worst experiences I personally had. This is a terrible experience. Should this measure have been taken we would have saved nearly 25,000 people that lost their lives.
Light and Darkness in Superman III
The central mythological idea in Superman III is about the relationship between light and darkness, and is well illustrated by these extracts from the text of the Superman III book:
Emerging from the body of Superman was the form of Clark Kent, who appeared first as a faintly luminous figure but grew more dense until he stood facing Superman with equal corporal weight. One half, Superman in black - the shadowy nature of things Kryptonic; the other half, Clark Kent, embodying something quite different, the positive sun of that world. The flame increased, engulfing them both, more powerful than acid to melt their enmity, its magnetism geater than the giant magnet of the graveyard; the flame lifted Superman and Kent together, and because it was older, the flame welded them together through knowledge. Kent felt himself merge with the black-robed angel, felt their paradoxical opposition fade.
Coincidences in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman