Word: pinatubo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When 15,000 anxious Americans were evacuated from Clark Air Base in the Philippines last week, they didn't know what to think. Were they in real danger or the victims of a false alarm? Within 48 hours, they got their answer. Nearby Mount Pinatubo, after sleeping quietly for more than 600 years, suddenly erupted in a series of explosions that shot plumes of steam and ash as much as 30 km (20 miles) into the sky. Debris rained down on surrounding villages, and a giant mushroom cloud was visible 100 km (60 miles) away in Manila...
...Mount Pinatubo's blasts came just one week after Japan's Mount Unzen blew its top, with more deadly results. The red-hot avalanches hurtling down the mountain's slopes killed at least 35 people. But the toll could have been much higher if scientists had not sounded the alarm that an eruption was imminent. In fact, many of those killed were journalists and volcanologists drawn to the mountain by the warnings, whereas most residents of the area fled to safety. They may have to stay away for a long while: Mount Unzen erupted again last week, and the worst...
...Both Pinatubo and Unzen lie along the infamous Ring of Fire, a crescent of volcanic activity that runs around the rim of the Pacific Ocean through the edges of Asia, North America and South America. Washington's Mount St. Helens, which exploded spectacularly in 1980, is part of the ring. It contains three- quarters of the earth's 540 historically active volcanoes. Since such mountains are erupting in one place or another almost all the time, it is merely a coincidence that Pinatubo and Unzen are exploding simultaneously...
...Japanese have donated instruments that will enable Mexico to keep a closer watch on Popocatepetl near Mexico City. And shortly after Pinatubo first showed signs of activity in April, the U.S. Geological Survey sent to the Philippines a team of scientists equipped with seismometers, tiltmeters (to measure tiny shifts in the slope of the mountain) and laptop computers to collect and analyze data. Several of the instruments, however, were obliterated by last week's eruptions, hampering efforts to figure out the volcano's next gambit...