Mount Pinatubo takes the spotlight again

Mount Pinatubo takes the spotlight again

By Dennis Ladaw, ABS CBN NEWS

 

Before its deadly eruption in 1991, Mount Pinatubo didn’t hold a candle to other volcanoes like Taal or Mayon in terms of popularity. Nobody could see it from the main highways of Tarlac and Zambales provinces, and it wasn’t very pretty to look at anyway.

That was until the summer of 1991 when the aetas who inhabit the areas surrounding the mountain heard and felt some rumblings occurring from inside the crater. Their report was quickly transmitted to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) headquarters in Quezon City, where the agency’s late director Dr. Reynaldo Punongbayan held office.

Its subsequent eruption in June is described as the greatest ever recorded on film. It was 10 times more powerful as Mount St. Helens’s legendary eruption, and twice as catastrophic as the eruption that buried the ancient city of Pompeii. Pinatubo was said to have literally blown itself apart. It was a life taking, landscape-changing and climate-affecting calamity.

It would take three years before life would become normal again for the people who inhabit the areas by the volcano. Yet are their lives actually the same today as it was before the eruption? Perhaps not, but they’ve adjusted their lives to the consequences of the disaster. In Tarlac, for instance, the local government is enticing tourists today to take a trek to the crater of Pinatubo.

The trek begins in Sta. Juliana, a barrio in Capas, Tarlac. It’s the last civilized place to see before heading for the volcano. It’s also the site of the last clean toilet. Trekkers will have to register themselves at the tourism office and hire an aeta guide before taking the hike, which could take as long as six hours under the blistering heat. Or one can hire a four-wheel drive jeep, which cuts the travel time in half. The jeep ride is an adventure itself as the driver expertly maneuvers the vehicle across creeks and rough dirt roads that have a good chance of disappearing by the time you head back to Sta. Juliana. Rest assured, it’s a much less treacherous ride than the short jeepney trip from Lawton to Port Area.

The driver then leaves you and your guide at the drop-off point where you start hiking for the next three hours. Trekkers get to cross a lot of small creeks with water flowing so fast it could sweep slippers off your feet and make them vanish forever.

In 2001 much of the landscape was covered by lahar, which made the place resemble Antarctica. Instead of the cold, however, you just deal with the heat of the scorching sun. At present, the hills have come to sprout some fauna and the trail that leads up the crater has enough greenery to belie the fact that this had once been the venue where Mother Nature vented her lethal fury.

The crater lake is scenic and dipping into its cool waters is good for the skin, what with the sulfur mixed in it. The waters get very deep once you reach at least 10 feet from the shore. If you don’t swim, you sit under the heat the picnic area has but a single little tree standing.

Of course, once you get back to Sta. Juliana, you’re completely exhausted. If you’ve got P600 to spare, you can visit the Mount Pinatubo Spa Resort located in the barrio.

Operated by a group of Korean businessmen, it is heaven sent for weary trekkers. The spa offers a massage in a serene lanai or you can have yourself buried under volcanic sand, which is a great alternative to the sauna. Majority of the staff are from Capas and many of them were just toddlers when Pinatubo erupted.

Tomorrow night at 9 p.m., Pinatubo takes the international spotlight again as the National Geographic Channel highlights the great eruption in a one-hour special called, Catastrophe: Eruption at Pinatubo.

The documentary includes interviews with the late Dr. Punongbayan and his Phivolcs staff, volcano experts from United States, the Aeta people who survived the catastrophe and top ranking officers of Clark Air Base. The special also includes actual footage of the eruption, including a harrowing chase involving a car carrying a TV news crew and a deadly cloud of boiling steam.

The Manila Times photo editor Albert Garcia experienced a similar adventure. He lived to have his famous shot of his own perilous chase get honored by National Geographic magazine as one of the top 100 photos of the 20th century.

The documentary, which is part of the channel’s series on natural disasters dubbed "Savage Earth Week," also pays tribute to Dr. Punongbayan and his colleagues. Because of his swift and decisive work, the death toll of this great disaster amounted to just hundreds. According to National Geographic, an eruption of this magnitude could have killed at least 100,000.