'Nothing to worry about Pinatubo crater lake'

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Amid the threat of typhoon “Ramil,” a senior government volcanologist assured Central Luzon folk yesterday that Mt. Pinatubo’s 2.5-kilometer wide and over 100-meter deep crater lake can withstand unusually heavy rains in the magnitude of those dumped by storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng.”

“There is nothing to fear about the crater lake which was formed after the summit of Mt. Pinatubo collapsed following its huge eruption in 1991,” Jaime Sincioco, officer-in-charge of the volcano monitoring and eruption prediction division of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), told The STAR.

Sincioco was among the government scientists who was assigned to Mt. Pinatubo when the volcano first showed signs of restiveness even before its historic eruption in June 1991.

The crater lake, some 1,000 meters above sea level, became controversial a few years ago amid fears that its wall could collapse and unleash tons of water and cause severe devastation in populated areas in the adjoining provinces of Zambales, Pampanga, and Tarlac.

Sincioco recalled that the controversy led to the creation of a channel on the crater’s western side to provide a permanent drainage system for the lake toward the Maraunot River and the Balin-Baquaro and Bucao rivers in Botolan, Zambales leading to the South China Sea.

The channel at the crater’s western rim came to be known as the “Maraunot notch,” he said.

“The digging up of the channel revealed to us that underneath the earthen layer of the crater rim are materials which are adobe-like. We believe that the crater lake is cupped by such materials stronger than cement,” he added.

Sincioco said the unusually huge volume of rainfall dumped by Ondoy and Pepeng did not adversely affect the integrity of Mt. Pinatubo’s crater rim.