Mt. Pinatubo, 10 years after

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Ten years ago today, a dark mushroom-like cloud of ash marred Independence Day celebrations in Central Luzon.

The black column extending seven kilometers from the peak of Mt. Pinatubo struck fear into the hearts of government employees attending the holiday flag ceremony.

It was not entirely unforetold: days earlier, thousands of US soldiers and their families had abandoned this former US Air Force base in anticipation of a major eruption.

And on June 15, "Apo Namalyari" finally let loose centuries of pent-up fury. The volcano rained darkness before noon, and by 3 p.m., an ash storm swept the central plains as the earth seemed to lapse into convulsions.

It was just the start of a volcanic scourge to last for years, debilitating the entire region.

In 1991 alone, the defunct Presidential Task Force on Mt. Pinatubo summed up the losses: P3.8 billion in infrastructure; 86,869 hectares of agricultural lands; 61,811 hectares of forests; P1.2 billion worth of trade and industry assets.

Some 651,000 farmers and workers were also displaced as 934 people died, mostly in crowded evacuation centers.

Today Mt. Pinatubo is again in slumber, a favorite haven of tourists and trekkers, and not expected to erupt in this generation or even the next.

Some P23 billion has already been spent by the government to rehabilitate and save lives following the wrath of Apo Namalyari — what the native Aetas residing in the area call the volcano.

For scientists of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), the Mt. Pinatubo eruption was "unprecedented."

"It was some kind of university from which I learned a lot," Phivolcs senior research specialist Perla de los Reyes told The STAR.

"It was my first experience of an eruption. It prepared me for the less powerful eruption of Mayon in 1993 and other such eruptions," she said.

Phivolcs scientist July Sabit described his experience with Mt. Pinatubo as "a volcanology textbook in reality."

"What I learned from textbooks I experienced all at Mt. Pinatubo. It was a case of theory being demonstrated in reality, such as ashfalls creating the visual effect of snow, of ashfalls collapsing roofs," he said.

Sabit said that in his experience as Phivolcs scientist since 1975, Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption was "most unforgettable."

"It was incredibly powerful. It caused quakes 40 kilometers away," he recalled.

De los Reyes has urged a regular commemoration of the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo so as to let future generations "learn from the past."

"People should not forget what happened 10 years ago. There always be areas at high risk from lahar. We should now learn how to observe safety restrictions, such as the 10-kilometer radius zone from the volcanic crater," Delos Reyes said.

"We can’t even be sure whether the next eruption would happen another 400 years from now," she noted amid estimates that Mt. Pinatubo’s last eruption before 1991 was some 400 to 600 years ago.

Except for a large volcanic boulder which has been transformed into some kind of monument in front of the Clark Development Corp., offices here, there’s not a single physical marker to help etch in the minds of future generations in Central Luzon the lessons from Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption.

Even at resettlement areas where some 50,000 lahar-displaced families have been given new homes, folks prefer to look forward to better, normal days, their tragic past pushed to the backrooms of memory.

Still, the government has to grapple with two major problems bequeathed by Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption. Another 5,000 displaced families need resettlement homes, even as widespread and prolonged flooding is expected to persist until waterways especially in Pampanga are cleared of lahar.

In any event, Central Luzon folk will go on today with their flag ceremonies commemorating a nation’s independence, without fear of another dark cloud casting a shadow of ash over them, a reminder of a hundred years’ wrath from the bluish volcano on the western horizon.