Vulcan's Fury: Man Against the Volcano

When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it could have annihilated the half-million people living within range of its lava and ash; instead, it killed barely a thousand, because volcanologists and local authorities knew what would happen and evacuated the area. What eruptions taught them what they knew? In a neatly interdisciplinary (if at times sensational) work, Scarth (Savage Earth) describes 15 volcanic eruptions important to earth science or to human history, from Italy's Stromboli and Vesuvius (A.D. 79) to Mount St. Helens, Pinatubo, and Nevado del Ruiz, in Colombia (1985), whose eruption melted a mountain's ice cap, creating horrific floods. Scarth weaves together geology, sociology, folklore, politics and history. Sometimes he simply traces the consequences of an eruption, describing, for example, the ""sulphuric aerosol"" released by Krakatau (1883), which changed the color of sunsets the world over. Sometimes Scarth's book becomes a history of disaster relief and evacuation policy. After Mount Pel e, in Martinique, erupted in 1902, the French colonial administration offered every displaced person 1.25 francs per day. This sum far exceeded a day's earnings for a nondisplaced Martinican laborer: the resulting social disruption led the new French governor to reduce relief for the displaced poor and increase it for the displaced rich. Scarth's readers will learn what authorities now know about how to predict and prepare for big eruptions, and the riveting accounts he provides of each calamity, eyewitness and secondhand, display the fascination that leads so many scientists to risk their lives to study volcanoes. 70 b&w, 30 color photos. (Sept.)