The Eruption of Mount Pinatubo

The Eruption of Mount Pinatubo

If you'd been on the Philippines in the year 1991, you'd have been forgiven for thinking that the world was ending. Typhoon Yunya was screaming across the island, but the angry skies were nothing compared with the angry Earth. Mount Pinatubo, an unassuming volcano that no one had even realized was active until a few years prior, was blowing its top. On the 15th June of 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century took place on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, 90 km northwest of the capital city Manila. It was also, by far, the largest eruption to affect a densely populated area. Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano, is part of a chain of volcanoes along the Luzon arc on the west coast. The arc of volcanoes is due to the subduction of the Manila trench to the west. The mountain has a very huge eruptive history. It was known to be thermally active and had been explored as possible geothermal energy resource by the Philippine National Oil Company. Mount Pinatubo is among the highest peaks in west-central Luzon. Its lower flanks were made, mostly, of pyroclastic deposits from voluminous, explosive prehistoric eruptions. Although the 1991 eruption was one of the largest and most violent of the 20th century.

The Events Leading to the Eruption

The events of the 1991 eruption began back in July 1990, when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck a region 100 km northeast of Pinatubo. This shook the earth's crust beneath the volcano and caused a landslide, some local earthquakes and some small steam emissions too. The following year, sometime in March, villagers of Patal Pinto felt some earthquakes around the volcano. On the 2nd of April the villagers witnessed small explosions followed by steaming and the smell of rotten eggs. The Filipino geologists immediately installed portable seismographs 10 to 15 km away from the summit, recording over hundreds of earthquakes a day which meant that there was geothermal movement on steam and water beneath the surface.

On the request of the Filipino government, personnel from the USGS arrived on the 23rd of May. The US showed particular interest in the situation because it had two military bases in Luzon, of which the Clark Air Base was the biggest US military base, on foreign soil. Within the next 2 weeks a radio-telemeter was installed that was capable of locating the increasing number of earthquakes. They later installed tilt meters to detect new ground movement. The content of SO2 in the continuously visible steam plumes were measured by the help of the U.S Air Force. All these signals indicated that magma was rising towards the surface from more than 32 km's beneath the volcano.

Meanwhile, geologists made a geological investigation of the volcano and established a set of alert (with 1 being a low level unrest and 5 being a high level unrest) to provide the public with Mount Pinatubo's status. As soon as the chart was completed on the 13th of May, the alert level was set at two. Throughout the end of May vigorous steam emissions continued from vents on the north side.

By May 23, a hazard map was prepared and distributed to local officials, showing areas most vulnerable to pyroclastic flow, lahars and ash fall. The map shows the worst case scenario.

The geologists did not want to take any risk in calling out the evacuation, if they called it too early then the people would return to their areas but if they called it out too late then thousands of lives could be lost. They then defined three successive evacuation zones:

Zero to 10 km from the volcano, 10 to 20 km from the volcano and 20 to 40 km from the volcano, this included the Clark Air Base and the Angeles city with the population of 300,000 people.

On the 7th of April, the zero to 10km zone was evacuated. On the 7th of June, when the alert level was raised to 4, the 10 to 20 km zone was evacuated. And a level 5 alert triggered evacuation of the 20 to 40 km zone on the 14th of June. For the people who weren't willing to leave the area, a video showing the extreme hazards of the eruption was played to convince them of the dangers of the eruption. Also, on the 10th of June, the military finally issued evacuation orders and the 18,000 Clark Air Base personnel along with their families were transported to Subic Bay Naval Station (most were returned to the US). In total, the authorities were able to evacuate 200,000 people.

From June 7 to 12, SO2 gas emissions, which had increased tenfold from May 13 to May 28, suddenly decreased. The US government wanted definite answers so the USGS geologists went to the site to look for evidence. They monitored the SO2 emissions for two weeks and the results indicated that either the volcano had postponed its attack or that the