Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano in the Zambales Mountains, located on the tripoint boundary of the Philippine provinces of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga, all in Central Luzon on the northern island of Luzon.
Its eruptive history was unknown to most before the pre-eruption volcanic activities of 1991, just before June. Pinatubo was heavily eroded, inconspicuous and obscured from view. It was covered with dense forests which supported a population of several thousand indigenous Aetas.
Pinatubo is most notorious for its VEI-6 eruption on June 15, 1991, the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century after the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Alaska.
Complicating the eruption was the arrival of Typhoon Yunya, bringing a lethal mix of ash and rain to towns and cities surrounding the volcano. Predictions at the onset of the climactic eruption led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding areas, saving many lives.
Surrounding areas were severely damaged by pyroclastic surges, pyroclastic falls, and subsequently, by the flooding lahars caused by rainwater re-mobilizing earlier volcanic deposits. This caused extensive destruction to infrastructure and changed river systems for years after the eruption. Minor dome-forming eruptions inside the caldera continued from 1992 to 1993.
The effects of the 1991 eruption were felt worldwide. It ejected roughly 10 billion tonnes or 10 km3 of magma, and 20 million tonnes of SO2, bringing vast quantities of minerals and toxic metals to the surface environment. It injected more particulate into the stratosphere than any eruption since Krakatoa in 1883.
More information: EOS
Over the following months, the aerosols formed a global layer of sulphuric acid haze. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C in the years 1991-1993, and ozone depletion temporarily saw a substantial increase.
The volcano is about 87 kilometres northwest of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Near Mount Pinatubo are former military bases that were maintained by the United States. The U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay was 37 kilometres south of Pinatubo, and the extent of Clark Air Base was just 14 kilometres east of the volcano's summit. The volcano is near to about 6 million people.
Mount Pinatubo's summit before the 1991 eruption was 1,745 m above sea level, only about 600 m above nearby plains, and only about 200 m higher than surrounding peaks, which largely obscured it from view. It is part of a chain of volcanoes which lie along the western side of the island of Luzon called the Zambales Mountains.
Following the climactic eruption of June 15, 1991, activity at the volcano continued at a much lower level, with continuous ash eruptions lasting until August 1991 and episodic eruptions continuing for another month.
Activity at the volcano remained low until July 1992 when a new lava dome started growing in the caldera. Volcanologists suspected that further violent eruptions could be possible, and some areas were evacuated. However, the eruption was only minor. The last eruption from Mount Pinatubo took place in 1993.
More information: USGS
The word pinatubo could mean fertile place where one can make crops grow, or could mean made to grow, in Sambal and Tagalog, which may suggest a knowledge of its previous eruption in about 1500 AD. There is a local oral tradition suggestive of a folk memory of earlier large eruptions.
An ancient legend tells of Bacobaco, a terrible spirit of the sea, who could metamorphose into a huge turtle and throw fire from his mouth. In the legend, when being chased by the spirit hunters, Bacobaco flees to the mountain and digs a great hole in its summit showering the surrounding land with rock, mud, dust and fire for three days; howling so loudly that the earth shakes.
Aeta elders tell many stories about the history of the mountain, the best known being that it was once a Batung Mabye, Kapampangan language for living stone. It was said to have been planted on a kingdom by a displeased sorcerer, but relocated by a hero.
The mountain was soon turned into the abode of Apo Namalyari, The lord of happenings/events, the pagan deity of the Sambal, Aetas and Kapampangans living on the Zambales range.
It was said to comprise the whole mountain range until Sinukuan of Mount Arayat, the god of the Kapampangans, became a strong rival of Namalyari. Their fight, which took place over the center planes, shattered the mountain into smaller bodies and Mount Arayat lost its center peak. Other versions have it that Pinatubo's peak shattered because of Namalyari's immense fury in an attempt to teach humans the meaning of fear and show how misdeeds will be punished.
More information: Globe
According to the native elders, Apo Namalyari induced the June 1991 eruption because of displeasure toward illegal loggers and Philippine National Oil Company executives who performed deep exploratory drilling and well testing on the volcano looking for geothermal heat from 1988 to 1990. Discouraging results from the wells forced the abandonment of the prospect 13 months before the April 2, 1991 explosions.
After being driven away by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in May 2009 some 454 Aeta families in Pampanga were given the first clean ancestral land ownership on Mount Pinatubo with the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the government agency that deals with issues concerning indigenous people of the Philippines. The approved and declared net land area of 7,440.1 ha covers the barangays of Mawakat and Nabuklod in Floridablanca, Pampanga, plus a portion of San Marcelino, Zambales, and a portion of Barangay Batiawan in Subic, Zambales.
On January 14, 2010, some 7,000 Aeta families from Zambales were officially granted the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) covering the Zambales side of Pinatubo which includes the summit and Lake Pinatubo, officially becoming their lutan tua (ancestral land). The ancestral domain title covers 15,984 ha and includes the villages of Burgos, Villar, Moraza and Belbel in Botolan and portions of the towns of Cabangan, San Felipe and San Marcelino.
Having the land title will protect them from others -including foreigners- exploiting their land without compensation and consent to the indigenous tribes. In the past, the Aetas had to contend with mining companies, loggers, and recently, tourist companies who earn from Mount Pinatubo but do not compensate the local tribes.
Ancestral domain titles are awarded to a certain community or indigenous group who have occupied or possessed the land continuously in accordance with their customs and traditions since time immemorial. They have the legal right to collectively possess and to enjoy the land and its natural resources to the exclusion of others.
More information: ThoughtCo
than man makes in a whole year.
And when you look at this 'climate change',
and when you look at the regular climate change
that we all have in the world,
we have warm and we have cooling spells.
John Raese
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