Huge Blast Rocks Pinatubo Volcano as Clark Evacuees Crowd Into Subic Base : Philippines: A huge plume of ash and steam can be seen as far away as Manila, 60 miles south.

L.A. Times Archives

June 12, 1991 12 AM PT

<i> From Times Staff and Wire Reports</i>

MANILA — A huge explosion rocked the Mt. Pinatubo volcano today, and a huge plume of ash and steam rising into the sky could be seen as far away as Manila, 60 miles to the south.

Raymundo Punongbayan, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, described the explosion as “a big one.” He warned people within a 12-mile radius to flee.

“Even 30 kilometers (18 miles)--is not to be considered safe,” he said.

The eruption began at 8:51 a.m. with a tremendous explosion. Reporters at the scene said a huge mushroom cloud--”which looked like an atomic bomb,” one said--billowed from the crater.

Threats of an eruption prompted nearly 15,000 Americans to begin evacuating Clark Air Base on Monday. The facility is less than 10 miles west of the volcano.

Lt. Joy Sanchez, spokesman for the Philippine military’s Clark Air Base Command, said the remaining 1,500 Americans and Filipino guards fled the base today after a siren sounded the alarm at 9 a.m.

He said there was a huge traffic jam in adjacent Angeles as thousands tried to escape the eruption.

On Tuesday, as Mt. Pinatubo puffed and rumbled in the distance, thousands of displaced American military personnel, their families and even a pet wolf jammed into the already overcrowded Subic Bay Naval Station, the world’s latest and most unlikely refugees.

Using cots, sleeping bags and “bubble wrap” packing material for mattresses, hundreds of families slept in racquetball courts, an officers’ club and two chapels, where the pews were pushed aside and the altars removed. Others doubled or tripled up in 1,100 apartments and homes on the base. A few set up camping tents or slept in their cars.

“We doubled the population overnight,” Rear Adm. Thomas Mercer, head of Subic and commander of U.S. Navy operations in the Philippines, told a group of visiting journalists.

In all, officials said, 14,635 U.S. Air Force personnel, family members and Defense Department contractors and employees were evacuated from Clark Air Base beginning Monday after scientists warned of an imminent and potentially catastrophic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which last erupted six centuries ago.

A bulletin issued by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said scientists observed a “voluminous emission of ash-laden steam clouds” Tuesday curling 16,500 feet west-southwest from a vent on the northwest slope of the cloud-shrouded peak.

A series of minor eruptions since last weekend, on the mountain face away from Clark, have caused no injuries.

Clark, 50 miles north of Manila, is headquarters to the U.S. 13th Air Force. The base has one of the world’s largest aerial combat training ranges and is a major switching point for flights operated by the Military Airlift Command. Built as a U.S. cavalry post in 1901, Clark provided logistic support during the Persian Gulf buildup and war.

The American evacuation has put special strains on Subic Bay, a scenic seaside base that serves as a repair, resupply and training site for the U.S. 7th Fleet and has a rowdy liberty town right next door. Traffic became snarled, the commissary ran out of meat and some “Men” signs on restroom doors were changed to “Women.”

Some 300 pet dogs, cats, snakes, hamsters and even a wolf are being kept in a makeshift kennel set up in a covered parking lot at Cubi Point, a Navy airstrip, according to base spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Mukri. Other pets were ferried to Grande Island, a beach resort for the base situated in the center of the bay.

“It’s tough,” Mukri said. “We’re not designed as a pet hotel.”

The Clark evacuees drove here in sweltering heat Monday to find up to eight-hour lines outside the Sampaguita Club processing center, where officials scrambled to find sufficient shelter on a base that already suffers a shortage of 807 beds for enlisted men.

Officials accelerated departures for several hundred personnel and families scheduled to leave the Philippines for new assignments in coming weeks.

Some families bowled or picnicked on the beach Tuesday. Children from Clark happily missed final exams. Thousands crowded the discos and honky-tonks in neighboring Olangapo, where bar girls from near the Clark base reportedly had followed the convoy of evacuees. Some airmen saw other advantages.

“It’s nice to see a lot more American Air Force women around, you know,” Marine guard Kevin Bernheisel said with a laugh.

Others took the disruption in stride. In the last 18 months, after all, the Philippines has suffered a major coup attempt, a devastating earthquake, a drought, floods, terrorist bombings and stepped-up threats by Communist guerrillas that saw liberty curtailed at the bases for weeks at a time.

“After going through so many things in the military and the Philippines, it’s just another day,” shrugged Air Force Staff Sgt. Dan Robinson, an evacuee from Clark. “GIs get to experience it for a few years. The Filipinos go through it all the time.”