White walls of Pampanga

It was June 15, 1991 , at 1:42 pm local time, when the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century took place in the Philippines. It killed almost a thousand people and left hundred thousands of families homeless. Over the 9-hour eruption of the mountain, it discharged 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere that resulted a decrease in temperature worldwide.


Huge avalanches of searing hot ash, gas, and pumice fragments (pyroclastic flows) roared down the flanks of Mount Pinatubo, filling once-deep valleys with fresh volcanic deposits as much as 660 feet (200 meters) thick. The eruption removed so much magma and rock from below the volcano that the summit collapsed to form a large volcanic depression (caldera) 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) across.


But my story today is not about the negative things Mt. Pinatubo brought to Pampanga. It’s about the beautiful scenery it created behind the disaster. This is our quest to find the white walls of Pampanga.

- It's me Louie