Mt Pinatubo Reaction

Darren Balolong

2007-46370 JS100

Mt. Pinatubo

Mother Nature is really so unpredictable. After living a long period of relatively peaceful and routine lives, and suddenly an unexpected thing happens. So unexpected that most of the people does not know what to do in that reaction and not prepared. Hundreds of lives and millions worth of properties were lost due to that catastrophic event that nobody was prepared for it. That is what happened during the independence day of 1991. There were reports of earthquakes and small explosion leading to the big explosion, but it’s hard for people, especially the ones who live there for a long time, to believe and leave their lives in the community because of it is the first time that these happened for a hundreds of years. This catastrophic serves us a lesson to all of us Filipinos. We must use this lesson and avoiding the mistakes done in the past to be prepared if such occurrence happens once again. We do not need keep this to ourselves this event can also help other countries with volcanic activities, such as Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, etc. This sharing of data and experience can really help the communities around the world. As a Japanese studies student, I will discuss what the Japanese did in order to preserve the knowledge and share it to generations of people, and other things to do during a volcanic eruption.

First topic that I will discuss is about preserving and transmission of narratives and material culture to the people from the 1783 Mt. Asama eruption by Mr. Toshiaki Seki. After the big eruption at Mt. Asama, where lots of lives and huge amount of properties were lost, the community started to compile all the data, such as caricature of the event, the written narratives by the people who had seen the explosion and also the oral stories that people pass down to generations after generations. Due to the activity of the volcano, people are constantly reminded of the dangers and things to do in a...