Volcanoes Philippines

About 15,000 American service personnel, dependents and civilians were ordered early today to evacuate Clark Air Base, one of the largest U.S. bases overseas, after a Philippines volcano dormant for six centuries began exploding with searing gases, thick ash and deadly debris. Lt. Col. Ron Rand, a spokesman at Clark, announced at 5 a.m.

Seeking to avert flooding, workers began draining a volcanic lake in the Philippines today, after thousands of nearby residents were evacuated from their homes. Water began trickling out of Mt. Pinatubo as workers carved out a small channel to drain the rising crater lake. A "gentle" flow of water from the volcano's crater spilled into the Bucao River nearby, apparently posing no immediate threat to villages, said Delfin Garcia of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

The explosion of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines last June, now believed to be the largest volcanic eruption of the century, filled the skies with enough dust to cool the Earth far more than any effects of global warming might warm it--at least for a few years--according to new findings released Tuesday. Images from satellites show the Earth girdled by a cloud of light-reflecting volcanic ash and gas, which is whirling around the Equator about 15 miles above the Earth's surface.

A dozen tribesmen with picks and shovels climbed the Mt. Pinatubo volcano Thursday on a dangerous mission to drain a crater lake that threatens their villages with massive floods. Tugging a leashed pig to sacrifice to their mountain god, the Aeta tribesmen planned to carve a notch in the volcano's crater to slowly release water from the rising lake. Accompanied by a dozen porters and two engineers, the diggers are expected to chop 16 feet off the lowest point of Pinatubo's summit.

Once America's largest overseas air base, this strategic military installation may be permanently crippled, U.S. officials said Sunday as damage reports continued to grow from last week's devastating eruption episode of Mt. Pinatubo. A six-hour tour of Clark showed that the eruption spewed a deadly wave of superheated gas, rocks and mud up to 20 feet high down a river valley only a few hundred yards behind an officers' housing complex and elementary school.

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines may rank among the major volcanic events of history, producing atmospheric effects that linger for months, if not years, scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday. Satellites tracking the ash cloud high in the Earth's stratosphere show that material from the explosions is now spread over more than a million square miles, with three distinct "tongues" passing over Africa toward the Atlantic Ocean.

A month after Mt. Pinatubo blanketed Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base with tons of volcanic debris, U.S. and Philippine officials are to resume meeting Monday in hopes of finally deciding the fate of the two big American bases. U.S. military officials are due to report today on the extent of damage, and the expected cost of repairs. Their assessment will help determine whether the Air Force must abandon Clark, which lies less than 10 miles from the still-erupting volcano.

After rumbling for five months, one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes erupted Sunday in fountains of bright red lava and towering clouds of ash as car-sized boulders tumbled down its slopes. One massive explosion from the Mayon volcano spewed ash more than nine miles high, with continuous columns of nearly 2,000 feet, officials said. Visibility dropped to near zero within hours as the enormous mushroom cloud began to settle, turning the landscape gray.

Thousands of people began fleeing a volcanic island south of Manila on Saturday after scientists warned that earthquakes and steaming fissures indicated there could be an eruption within weeks. Scientists recorded 406 rock-fracturing quakes during a 29-hour period at Taal volcano, one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes, about 35 miles south of Manila. Last June, the Mt. Pinatubo volcano, about 60 miles north of Manila, erupted.

Geologists plan to hack a notch into the crater of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in a dangerous operation to drain a volcanic lake that threatens nearby villages with mass floods, scientists said. Workers with picks and shovels are expected to climb the 4,740-foot volcano next week to chop 16 feet off the lowest point of Pinatubo's summit and bleed the crater lake, said Mylene Villegas, head geologist of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

After rumbling for five months, one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes erupted Sunday in fountains of bright red lava and towering clouds of ash as car-sized boulders tumbled down its slopes. One massive explosion from the Mayon volcano spewed ash more than nine miles high, with continuous columns of nearly 2,000 feet, officials said. Visibility dropped to near zero within hours as the enormous mushroom cloud began to settle, turning the landscape gray.

About 3,000 villagers left their homes as a central Philippine volcano unleashed a series of explosions and lava trickled down its slopes in a warning of possible eruption, officials said. Residents of four small villages five miles from the slopes of Mayon volcano--about 200 miles southeast of Manila--fled to evacuation centers in the city of Legazpi, Mayor Imelda Roces said.

One of the Philippines' deadliest volcanoes erupted, sending rivers of fire surging down its slopes, darkening towns with ash and forcing about 30,000 people to flee, officials said. The Mayon volcano, which has been building in activity since it reawakened last summer, unleashed 14 eruptions throughout the day. No casualties were reported. The volcano, 190 miles southeast of Manila near the city of Legazpi, spewed burning rocks and superheated ash six miles into the sky. On Feb.

Steaming avalanches of volcanic debris cascaded down the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo on Friday, swamping more than a dozen villages and killing at least 13 people, officials said. Seven people were missing after the volcanic muck swept through 14 villages 20 miles southeast of Pinatubo, Defense Secretary Renato de Villa said. Nine people died in Bacolor and four bodies were recovered in nearby Porac, said Lucia Gutierrez, a social welfare officer in Pampanga province.

The Mayon volcano erupted 26 times Wednesday, forcing thousands of villagers to flee to evacuation centers already teeming with refugees.

President Corazon Aquino's government on Sunday suggested making bricks, pendants and souvenirs from the tons of debris left by Mt. Pinatubo. Her government is trying to find creative ways to use the ash, pumice and rocks that the volcano spewed out, presidential spokesman Tomas Gomez said. "It's not a total loss. Somehow . . . we'll find a use," Gomez said.

The killer volcano Mayon rumbled and belched ash, and officials ordered 6,000 more people out of villages near its slopes. About 2,800 miles to the southeast, another volcano erupted in the Solomon Islands, forcing the evacuation of more than 300 people. The evacuees in the Philippines will join about 57,000 people already living in 52 emergency shelters in the Legazpi area.

The latest eruption Friday of the Mayon volcano in the Philippines--with reports of superheated debris, known as pyroclastic flows, reaching down the slopes three miles from the crater--struck volcanologists on the scene and in the United States as ominous.