Giovanni Rantucci

Geological Disasters in the Philippines: the July 1990 Earthquake and the 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo Giovanni Rantucci

The book "Geological Disasters in the Philippines" The July 1990 earthquake and the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, was presented for the first time to the World Conference on Natural Disasters, held in Yokohama (Japan) May 23 1994, within the contribution of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction (IDNDR). The second edition of the book (2012), two decades after the 1990 and 1991 geological events in the Philippines, calls for a deep reflection on the seismicity along the werstern border of the Pacific Plate. The Japan earthquake (March 11, 2011) and the associated tsunami which heavily affected Fukushima's Nuclear Power Plant highlight that development along coastal areas can be dangerous for the people and their activities. The book "Geological Disasters in The Philippines" describes the two consecutive events (earthquake and eruption), the associated disasters and the devastating mudflows triggered in western Luzon Island (Pampanga), due to the combined effect of the volcanic ash blanket and the June-September 1991 rainy season. The overall damage to the economy of the Philippines during the period 1987 (due to typhoons, the July 1990 earthquake, the June 1991 eruption of Pinatubo and production losses) amounted to over 3 billion US$.