Mount Pinatubo
Case Study
Causes
Effects
Date and location
Date
Location
15th June 1991
South East Asia, Philippines, the island of Luzon. It is in the middle of the Eurasian and Philippine plate it is part of the chain of volcanoes known as the Luzon volcanic arc.
The formation of Mount Pinatubo
Social
Economic
Environmental
The formation of Mount Pinatubo begins with the formation of the chain of volcanoes, the Luzon Volcanic arc. A chain of volcanoes most likely means that a destructive plate boundary must have occurred there, which in fact is what actually happened. The denser oceanic philippine plate subducted under the less dense continental Eurasian plate. The more the philippine plate subducted, the hotter it got and the plate began to melt. This magma goes up through the cracks because of the pressure. The magma creates a row of volcanoes along the fault line
What happened during and right before the eruption?
On April 2nd the volcano showed signs of volcanic activity, which slowly became stronger. Sulfur dioxide started to be released by the volcano. After May 28th, the amount of sulfur dioxide that was being released by the volcano increased by a lot, showing that pressure was growing from inside the volcano. On June 15th, the eruption began
The volcano was so strong that it created a huge crater now known as lake Pinatubo as it filled up with water.
The eruptions damaged central Luzon, home to about 3 million people. 20,000 indigenous Aeta highlanders, who had lived on the slopes of the volcano, were displaced. About 200,000 people who evacuated from the area around Pinatubo before and during the eruptions have returned home but face the threat of lahars that have buried so many towns and villages. Those who didn't return home had to migrate to Manila
The eruption cost 700 million US dollars
The tectonic plates
Mt Pinatubo is created by the Eurasian plate subducting underneath the Philippine Sea Plate. The two plates are responsible for the volcano's formation
It generated an ash column that was over five km high
The eruption produced high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, mudflows, and a cloud of volcanic ash.
an earthquake with a 7.3 on the richter scale happened around 100 kilometers from the volcano, which moved the crust beneath Mt Pinatubo.
Fast flowing volcanic mudflows (lahars) caused a lot of erosion effecting many things like rivers bridges ect.
Volcanic ash is blown in all directions over very long distances, destroying fields and buildings.
The sulfur dioxide also caused acid rain which killed ecosystems and damaged buildings.
the authorities of the Philippine government moved over 60,000 people away from their homes.
Aid and rescue efforts
75,000 people evacuated. The US air force helped
More than 400 people died during the eruption, 300 of them died of falling roofs whilst another 100 from mudflow. Disease that broke out in evacuation camps and the continuing mud flows in the area caused more deaths, bringing the total death toll up to 847 people.
Many of the school there had were destroyed and thus education was halted
20 million tons of sulfur dioxide were injected into the atmosphere in Pinatubo's eruption, and the release of the gas cloud around the world caused global temperatures to drop by 0.5°C
Alert systems were put into place to warn of eruption.
The government created multiple shelters for disease control and long term aid
650,000 people lost there jobs
1.2 million homes distroyed
Heavy rainfall caused multiple buildings to collapse
Lots of infrastructure was destroyed
The airport had to shut down
The Farmland was destroyed by the ash and this made the farmlands useless, and many lost there jobs because of it