Up From The Ashes: Surviving the Mt. Pinatubo Eruption (26 years later)

Today is the 26th anniversary of the catastrophic eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

At 16 years old I learned an important life lesson: Everything that you have can be taken away in a blink of an eye.

On June 15th, 1991 I witnessed the second largest volcanic eruption on Earth this century, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. At the time I was living in my mum's village in Porac which is about 24 km from the volcano.

The warnings came 48 hours before and the mushroom cloud loomed in the blue sky. No one was really prepared for what would happen next. The ash descended, with darkness, it rained ash, mud and stones. The mountain had been dormant for 500 years and it woke with a vengeance.

We were picked up and taken on the open backs of dump-trucks to evacuation centres in Manila. Many refused to leave their homes.

My cousin and I were separated from our family. We huddled with thousands of others and ate relief food out of tins. Days later we walked 15 km home from the evacuation drop-off point. We crept like ghosts through deserted ghost towns, where the ash on the ground was as powdery and untouched as fresh snowfall.

After the eruption, the lahars (mudflows) came down from the mountain and buried homes, businesses, churches and towns. I saw people dig their houses out, only for them to be buried again when it next rained.

In the years after, more than 3 cubic kilometers of lahar was deposited in surrounding areas. That's equivalent to 300 million dump-truck loads.

More than 800 people died and 250,000 were made homeless, not to mention the devastating impact on local businesses.

The craziest thing is, while I was filming, people would take the time to smile and wave. That is the spirit of Filipinos. The spirit of humanity.

Yes, everything that you have can be taken away in a blink of an eye. And from nothing, like a phoenix, you can rise.

Looking at my hometown of Pampanga, I am so proud to see that 26 years later, we have risen up, literally from the ashes.

Here are some photos of the destruction that we witnessed, recorded on my camcorder. I still have the tapes of the 'documentary' I filmed to send to my parents, who were working in the UK at the time.

This steaming hot river of debris can travel at (65 kilometers) per hour and can travel more than 80 kilometers.

Lahars described as "stampeding horses" came down from the mountains with the rains, ravaging all in its path.

The river with the steaming mud, was the river we had to cross to go to school. We would ride in a bucket of a pay loader (digger) to take us to the other side because those that attempted to cross in cars and vans would be swept away when the lahars came down. A warning flag was the only sign, and when the guy waved the flag the mudflow would come fast.

The flattened building in the picture above, was our business. The business my parents had put their life savings into. There was nothing left.

26 years later - I am grateful and humbled by this experience. I learned about anti-fragility and the importance of community.

Most importantly I learned the true meaning of freedom.

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club