For those of you in Pampanga

[OnMyWay]

Replying to Foreigner and Gary D from the other Pampanga topic.

Regarding Pinatubo, I recently did some reading up on the eruption on June 15th, 1991, and learned some new things.

First, I thought I knew where Pinatubo was but I was way off.  Every time I went to Angeles or Manila I would see Mt. Arayat towering over the plains east of Angeles, and I thought that was Pinatubo!  You can see Pinatubo on the left and Arayat on the right of this Google map.

The reason I started reading about Pinatubo was because I visited an older doctor in the current flood zone of Olongapo.  She said they built their house there long before the eruption and they never had flooding.  The flooding started after the eruption when the lahar filled all the rivers.  They constantly dredge here lately, but every time there are big rains, the lahar starts flowing down the rivers.  As vegetation has grown back on some of the lahar covered mountains, it stabilizes them, but it takes years.

Pinatubo is no longer an outstanding mountain and there are peaks around it that are higher.  Pinatubo is in the center of this shot and you can see all the Lahar filled riverbeds flowing away from it.

In the above picture, upper right, you will see a city called Capas.  This is where New Clark City is being built.  I think it was 500 years from the previous eruption to the 1991 eruption.  I guess they have no worries about another eruption??

Wiki has a good write up of everything.  The teams scored high for preventative evacuation that saved a lot of lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo