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Personal Experiences. 2

Aerial view of the eruption.View from Clark's main entrance
The following is a transcript . You can see a scan of the original document HERE but be warned it is about 35kbs in size.

How much money have we got in Westpac.
Fri. 14th Blackout at midnight.
Sat. 15th Clear skies in morning later turning darker and darker until compeletely(like midnight at 10am)
black & no light from about 9am. Still no elect. That evening neighbours arrived with family to seek shelter. Houses are beginning to crumble under the weight of volcanic sand & ash being deposited on the rooftops. Typhoon Diding has struck also. Mt. Pinatubo had erupted earlier that day and the rain and wind was blowing the fallout into our province. Our family got up on the roof to clear sand from gutters & roof. This probably saved our house. All in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm. Later that evening we were called on to evacuate the house & go to Angeles City Holy Family Church. We had to walk about 5kms. When we finally got there we didn't like the situation so we walked about another 5kms to a Sports stadium in San Fernando. Spent the night there.Morning & Dory hired a jeep to go back to house & check. Safe so we all piled in & went home. Sun 16th. Hired some peopple to clean roof again. Several tons of sand on roof. That afternoon we decided to evacuate again. A jeep to the sports stadium Then on back of Coca Cola truck Halfway to Manila, we had to get off.

Met our scheduled jeep after about 3KMS walk. Spent the night in a friends house in which every inch of space was taken up by people sleeping on the floor, tables, chairs etc. Next day (Monday) we come home.

Mt. Pinatubo is still erupting. The main worry now is Mudflow or LAHAR. If there is any danger _ We will evacuate the kids & relatives to Manila. However Dory & I are determined to stay. Even if we have to sit it out on the roof!

These are the rough notes I scribbled in the confusion and panic at the time

As you might expect penmanship and grammar were not of the essence.
This is a view from the front of our house several months later. The roof and driveway had been cleaned and some trees were growing their leaves back.
View from the street alongside our house showing neighbour's boy helping with cleanup
Angeles City's Abacan River bridge destroyed by Lahar.

Even with streets filled with piles of ash and debris it's business as usual

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Created bySteve Innes,{[email protected]} on 11th Feb 1998. Last updated:

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