Mount Pinatubo
Ash plume of Pinatubo during 1991 eruption
Elevation:	4,875 feet (1,486 metres)
Location:	Luzon, Philippines
Range:	Zambales Mountains
Coordinates:	15°7.8′N, 120°21.0′E
Type:	Stratovolcano
Age of rock:	1.1 million years
Last eruption:	1993 1[1]

Mount Pinatubo is an active volcano located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, at the intersection of the borders of the provinces of Zambales, Bataan, and Pampanga. Before 1991, the mountain was inconspicuous and heavily eroded. It was covered in dense forest which supported a population of several thousand indigenous people, the Aeta, who had fled to the mountains from the lowlands when the Spanish conquered the Philippines in 1565.

The volcano's recent eruption in June 1991 came after 500 years of dormancy, and produced one of the largest and most violent eruptions of the 20th century. Successful predictions of the onset of the climactic eruption led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding areas, saving many lives, but the surrounding areas were severely damaged by pyroclastic flows, ash deposits, and later, lahars caused by rainwater remobilising earlier volcanic deposits. Thousands of houses were destroyed.

The effects of the eruption were felt worldwide. It injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883. The aerosols formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze over the following months. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F), and ozone destruction increased substantially.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)