A deafening bang shakes the earth, highly volatile gas fills the air, and the homes and trees of Machuca burst into a 65-foot wall of flame. Children in their pajamas roll screaming in the mud of the nearby Pocuné River. Dozens of people burn to death in their beds. By the morning after Colombia’s Ocensa pipeline was dynamited by guerrillas, the town of 2,500 people in Antioquia state lies in ruins. Around it, more than 75 acres (30 hectares) of dense tropical forest, once home to rare amphibians, reptiles and birds, have become a gray wasteland studded with charred tree trunks. Tongues of flame leap from the ashes as roots burn beneath the surface. “The first thing I thought was that this was Sodom... [Log in to read more]