U.S. Evacuating 20,000 From Philippines

U.S. officials Sunday launched an emergency evacuation to the United States of about 20,000 military dependents from two strategic bases facing massive cleanup and repairs after a 36-hour episode of eruption of Mt. Pinatubo that officials called the worst in the Philippines’ recorded history.

Using a seven-ship carrier task force led by the Abraham Lincoln, nearly all spouses and children of Navy and Air Force personnel in the Philippines will be taken within a week to Cebu island for military flights through Guam to Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, officials said.

“The object is to get them out as quickly as possible,” said Petty Officer Jerry Moore, a spokesman at Subic Bay Naval Base, where more than 30,000 Americans have taken shelter. U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager described the evacuation as “temporary” but added, “Nobody knows for sure yet.”

Mt. Pinatubo belched smoke and shuddered with earthquakes under ominous dark clouds Sunday, but its fury seemed to have subsided, said Raymundo Punongbayan, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

“For this episode, the worst is over,” he said. “But it’s not over yet.”

He said scientists were unable to monitor the volcano’s status, since all equipment and monitoring stations were abandoned or destroyed during violent eruptions that began Friday afternoon and lasted until early Sunday, showering a blizzard of coarse gray ash across Luzon and as far as Cambodia, which is about 1,000 miles away. A typhoon and numerous earthquakes compounded the disaster.

Punongbayan described Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption after 611 years as “the biggest we’ve ever experienced in recorded history.” He said the volcano had expelled so much ash over the last two days that a new blast would be less severe.

But after a night of terror, tens of thousands of Filipinos fled south from the devastated area on overloaded trucks, cars, buffalo carts and even a front-end loader. Thousands were on foot, carrying infants wrapped in ragged towels but little else as winds whipped ankle-high grit into a blinding mist. Two men, each missing a leg, limped desperately down the road on crutches, while another slogged through the muck in a wheelchair.

Virtually every roadside tree for miles was down, and deep ruts and potholes quickly turned ash-clogged roads to a bone-jarring obstacle course. A government-ordered evacuation was further hampered by the collapse of at least four highway bridges, forcing many to wade nervously through fast-running muddy water.

“My house was destroyed,” said one man, who spoke as he waded with his family through a raging brown river under the collapsed Abacan Bridge in Angeles city. “What have we done to deserve this?”

Dozens of buses and trucks waited on the far side of another broken bridge to take refugees to evacuation centers set up in stadiums and schools in Manila, Quezon City, San Fernando and other areas. But scores of families were separated in the chaos, as people climbed through windows and pushed aboard.

“A lot of children are being lost in this process,” said Jun Simon, mayor of Quezon City, who helped oversee the evacuation.

Reports of the death toll varied from 34 to 99, including eight who were crushed when part of Olangapo’s general hospital collapsed and six others who died in the rubble of a church in Dau, near Clark Air Base. At least 10 were reported buried in massive mudflows. Others died in evacuation centers, bus terminals, schools and homes.

Dozens of homes, factories and restaurants collapsed in nearby Angeles, where abandoned cars were buried in ash up to the hubcaps. The infamous warren of bars, restaurants and brothels outside Clark was deserted. Residents shoveled off ash-laden rooftops, but with no electricity, streets were eerily empty after sunset.

Mayor Antonio Abad Santos stood outside City Hall at midday, using soldiers armed with submachine guns to commandeer passing trucks and buses to evacuate residents. Roads were cut to the north and east, leaving only a crowded two-lane road headed south.

“The situation is very difficult,” said Santos, who estimated that four out of 10 houses were damaged or destroyed. He said two firetrucks were being sent to help provide drinking water to the beleaguered residents.

The eruptions dropped up to a foot of thick gray ash, pebbles and egg-size pumice on Subic Bay Naval Base, about 21 miles from the volcano. About 50 buildings collapsed from the weight of the volcanic debris, killing an American girl and a Filipina housemaid. Base electricity was off Sunday, and water supplies remained intermittent.

“The facility has been badly hurt,” Moore said. “. . . Even the jungle is devastated. We’re talking about sticks.”

Closer to the volcano, Clark Air Base looked like a vast moonscape, with about six inches of concrete-like volcanic ash covering roads, roofs and runways. Ragged scrubland and manicured lawns had the same bleak blanket of hard gray crust.

“Everything looks like a wasteland,” said Philippine Brig. Gen. Leopoldo Acot Jr., commander of about 150 Philippine troops guarding the nearly deserted base.

As he spoke, an aide tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir,” he said politely. “There’s another earthquake.”

Acot paused as the ground briefly heaved and swayed. “Yes, an earthquake,” he said calmly. “Now where was I?”

Nearby, a large tin-roofed double Quonset hut had collapsed from the heavy ash. Acot’s aide, Col. Jose Balajadia, estimated that up to 40% of the buildings on base had been damaged.

“It’s a disaster,” said Col. Art Corwin, deputy chief of base security, one of about 60 Americans who returned to Clark on Sunday, a day after a skeleton crew of Americans abandoned the base at the height of the eruptions. Nearly 15,000 base residents had been evacuated to Subic Bay last Monday.

“We moved back this afternoon, and unless there’s another eruption, we intend to stay,” Corwin said from his patrol car. In the distance, a U.S. flag snapped and fluttered over a base cemetery.

Two Philippine soldiers guarded Clark’s main gate, but a mile away the Friendship Gate was unguarded and unlocked. Officials said numerous break-ins and looting had occurred but declined to provide estimates of the damage.

The first 900 spouses and children of U.S. Air Force personnel sailed to Cebu, about 350 miles south, Sunday aboard the cruiser Arkansas and two frigates, the Rodney M. Davis and the Curts, officials said. Another 5,000 dependents were scheduled to leave today after the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln arrives, with daily evacuations planned through the week.

“Most of them don’t want to go,” said Moore, who reported receiving “hundreds of calls” from angry residents. But he added that the deadly threat of a still-erupting volcano gave authorities little choice.

“I don’t think the mountain’s finished yet,” he said. “It’s a mean mountain.”