pinatubo

A dozen tribesmen with picks and shovels climbed the Mount Pinatubo volcano last week on the dangerous mission to drain the crater lake that threatens their villages with massive floods if the volcano explodes, as it is threatening to do.

Their aim is to carve a notch in the volcano?s crater, to slowly release water from the rising lake, by chopping 16 feet off the lowest point of Pinatubo?s summit. When the notch is completed, geologists predict another 16 feet of already-weakened wall will give way, draining about 530 million cubic feet of water in five hours. The lake contains an estimated 7 trillion cubic feet of water.
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The crater of Mount Pinatubo is filling with water and scientists warn that it?s about to burst. Pinatubo erupted violently in 1991. Now the lake water level inside the crater is rising, effecting a geological fault in the crater called the Maraunot notch.

They believe it could give way at any time, sending an avalanche of mud over the towns and villages below. Emergency agencies are calling for immediate action to prevent a disaster. ?Two things are for certain, the lake water level is rising and the Maraunot notch will eventually be breached,? according to a geology research team commissioned by the charity group Oxfam.
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