Mount Pinatubo

volcano · Philippines · natural disaster

Sleeping giant awakened. Mount Pinatubo sat quiet for about 600 years until 1991, when underground rumbling warned that it was about to blow. People living nearby had no idea the mountain was even a volcano because thick forests covered it and there were no written records of its past eruptions.

Massive 1991 eruption. On June 15, 1991, Pinatubo exploded with incredible force, sending ash clouds 80,000 feet into the sky. The eruption was so powerful it affected weather patterns around the entire world for months afterward.

Aeta people's home. The Aeta are indigenous people who lived in the forests around Mount Pinatubo for thousands of years before the eruption. The volcano's forests gave them everything they needed to survive, but the 1991 disaster forced many to leave their homeland.

Ash everywhere. When Pinatubo erupted, it shot more than 20 million tons of ash into the air, turning day into complete darkness miles away. The ash was so thick that streetlights came on at noon in nearby cities.

Cooled the planet. So much ash and gases went into the atmosphere that they formed a haze around Earth, blocking some sunlight and making global temperatures drop by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for over a year.