So in November 2018 I moved from sunny and bright Surrey in the UK to even more sunny, bright and rainy Philippines. Settled in a small private community just out side of Tagaytay. Tagaytay is a small city on the top of the ridge of the outer crater that surrounds lake Taal which has Taal volcano island in it's middle.
Taal volcano I had previously climbed about 5 years previous to moving here. When I say climb I mean rode up on a small philippine pony. One which almost collapsed by the time we got back as then I was a mere 110 kg. Philippine ponies don't seem to be constructed for fat fucks like me.
Speaking to the locals they would tell you how the volcano had not erupted since the start of the 1900s. While it's an active volcano it won't go off they say. Wherever you went the same story. From all establishments around and overlooking it. Fine. Safe to say my mind was settled.
Back to the future from 2013 to January 12th 2020. A typical afternoon high up on the ridge. Clouds rolling around and cracks of thunder with flashes of lightning here and there. The odd rain shower cooling it down for several minutes just to add to the humidity. Then a nice cool mountain breeze to wash it all away.
This thunder storm started getting really loud. I mean so loud that windows would shake and lamps would rattle. Then a bomb went off. Out of my window I could see a rather large column of mucky, cloudy, shitty stuff rising into the air. A security guard arrived on his moped to give us the news that Taal had gone boomboom.
Flipped its lid. Blown a gasket or two.
That night there were incredible lighting storms around the plume of ash. Something out of a movie. I will have to get pictures offline as our camers could not take pictures through the sludge falling.
What followed was quite an experience. But considering the devestation to surrounding areas and communities shouldn't be jested at too much. For the next two weeks the ash plume spiralled and covered many parts of the surrounding areas.. Evacuations daily from ever increasing radius form around the main crater. Earth quakes. Literally hundreds of them. I will find the actual figures later but somewhere near 180 that were felt and 860ish in total that were recorded.
Evacuations were done by alert levels. Some had no choices and had to leave their homes. Our home is roughly 15km north of the main crater and we were only ever voluntary evacuees.
The first 48 hrs the wind blew directly over us. Soooooo! It rained volcanic ash and mud on us for two days until the wind turned around to the south east and focused on destroying lives there instead. 2 inches of volcanic sludge on everything. Then the sun came out and dried it like cement.
Fortunately for us the wind never came back round to us but it brutalised the southern parts for the next almost 2 weeks.
Every day earthquakes rattling the house. I think the largest was around magnitude 6.
We lost electricity and water not to long after the top blew. On top of that we live on a really steep hill so there was no way that cars could drive through the sludge at all. This was the start of my 2020 isolation. Maybe a week later we managed to get a 4x4 to us with a generator, fuel and supplies. Fortunately having a swimming pool meant that we had plenty of water to flush toilets. That's all it was good for as the bottom of the pool consisted of a few inches of volcanic sludge. A bit sulphuric i'm guessing.
All the media was reporting on how the big boom was still to come. The scientist fuelling this with their stats and how doomsday was here. It took a while but it slowed down over a period of several weeks.
The clean up job was painstaking for 100,000s of people. There's still signs here and there but it was an epic job. Safe t say our garden was completely dead plant wise. Although it was only a matter of a couple of weeks until native plants started poking their heads through again. It was unbelievable how the survived.
We must have moved 5 or 6 tonnes of ash and mud off the property. Trucks came to take it away. The roof cleaning business boomed as did the AC cleaning business.
We, myself and my father, made the decision to stay rather than evacuate. A house load of things we did not want looting and also a house we wanted to take care of just incase of damages that might occur. Maybe it was unwise but it worked out in the end. Who knows what woud have happened if the big boom happened.
So it was definitely quite an experience. One that i've never had nor the majority of people living around the volcano. It was definitely a huge learning curve for all. If it goes off again we will all be slightly wiser.
Cheers
C
Taal volcano I had previously climbed about 5 years previous to moving here. When I say climb I mean rode up on a small philippine pony. One which almost collapsed by the time we got back as then I was a mere 110 kg. Philippine ponies don't seem to be constructed for fat fucks like me.
Speaking to the locals they would tell you how the volcano had not erupted since the start of the 1900s. While it's an active volcano it won't go off they say. Wherever you went the same story. From all establishments around and overlooking it. Fine. Safe to say my mind was settled.
Back to the future from 2013 to January 12th 2020. A typical afternoon high up on the ridge. Clouds rolling around and cracks of thunder with flashes of lightning here and there. The odd rain shower cooling it down for several minutes just to add to the humidity. Then a nice cool mountain breeze to wash it all away.
This thunder storm started getting really loud. I mean so loud that windows would shake and lamps would rattle. Then a bomb went off. Out of my window I could see a rather large column of mucky, cloudy, shitty stuff rising into the air. A security guard arrived on his moped to give us the news that Taal had gone boomboom.
Flipped its lid. Blown a gasket or two.That night there were incredible lighting storms around the plume of ash. Something out of a movie. I will have to get pictures offline as our camers could not take pictures through the sludge falling.
What followed was quite an experience. But considering the devestation to surrounding areas and communities shouldn't be jested at too much. For the next two weeks the ash plume spiralled and covered many parts of the surrounding areas.. Evacuations daily from ever increasing radius form around the main crater. Earth quakes. Literally hundreds of them. I will find the actual figures later but somewhere near 180 that were felt and 860ish in total that were recorded.
Evacuations were done by alert levels. Some had no choices and had to leave their homes. Our home is roughly 15km north of the main crater and we were only ever voluntary evacuees.
The first 48 hrs the wind blew directly over us. Soooooo! It rained volcanic ash and mud on us for two days until the wind turned around to the south east and focused on destroying lives there instead. 2 inches of volcanic sludge on everything. Then the sun came out and dried it like cement.
Fortunately for us the wind never came back round to us but it brutalised the southern parts for the next almost 2 weeks.
Every day earthquakes rattling the house. I think the largest was around magnitude 6.
We lost electricity and water not to long after the top blew. On top of that we live on a really steep hill so there was no way that cars could drive through the sludge at all. This was the start of my 2020 isolation. Maybe a week later we managed to get a 4x4 to us with a generator, fuel and supplies. Fortunately having a swimming pool meant that we had plenty of water to flush toilets. That's all it was good for as the bottom of the pool consisted of a few inches of volcanic sludge. A bit sulphuric i'm guessing.
All the media was reporting on how the big boom was still to come. The scientist fuelling this with their stats and how doomsday was here. It took a while but it slowed down over a period of several weeks.
The clean up job was painstaking for 100,000s of people. There's still signs here and there but it was an epic job. Safe t say our garden was completely dead plant wise. Although it was only a matter of a couple of weeks until native plants started poking their heads through again. It was unbelievable how the survived.
We must have moved 5 or 6 tonnes of ash and mud off the property. Trucks came to take it away. The roof cleaning business boomed as did the AC cleaning business.
We, myself and my father, made the decision to stay rather than evacuate. A house load of things we did not want looting and also a house we wanted to take care of just incase of damages that might occur. Maybe it was unwise but it worked out in the end. Who knows what woud have happened if the big boom happened.
So it was definitely quite an experience. One that i've never had nor the majority of people living around the volcano. It was definitely a huge learning curve for all. If it goes off again we will all be slightly wiser.
Cheers
C
