On October
7, 1999, around 7:00 a.m., as I was fixing breakfast for my children in
my house in Quito, Ecuador, I looked out the kitchen window and noticed
that my neighbors across the street were all standing at their windows
and looking with great excitement at the top of the mountain on which my
house is located. Just as I was about to go outside to see what was
going on, they rang the doorbell, and said, “Quick, bring your camera!
The volcano is erupting!” So I grabbed my camera and ran outside.
I got a sequence of five shots. (Fortunately I already had my wide
angle lens on the camera.) The one shown here is the first one.
To see the whole series, click
here. (Warning: it might take a while for all five shots to load!)
My house is the one on the left. I assure you that these pictures are completely unedited. This is exactly what I saw when I took the pictures! The entire sequence probably occurred over no more than 10 or 15 minutes. The mushroom cloud looks ominous, but it turned out to be mostly water vapor, and didn’t drop any ash at all on my house on this occasion, though it was by far the most impressive display I have seen! I believe it reached a height of about 15 miles.
Aren’t we scared, living on the slope of an active volcano? Well, fortunately, the risk is minimal. The mountain (Pichincha) is a huge massif, and has two main peaks, both about the same height (over 15,000 feet). The extinct peak (Rucu Pichincha) is directly between us and the active peak (Guagua Pichincha), and blocks us from any threat of lava or the direct effects of an explosion. Really the only risk we run is volcanic ash, and that has already fallen on the city a number of times. The ash is cold by the time it falls, and the deepest it has been is about 1/8 of an inch. This is really no more than a nuisance, though if we don’t sweep it up it can clog some of our drains, and if we go out while it’s falling, the sulphuric acid in it can make our eyes smart. The ash is very heavy, and will easily break a plastic garbage bag if you fill it more than about 4 inches full!