Day 6, May 19, 1980

The vigorous eruption of Mount St Helens persisted for less than 20 minutes. When we finally struggled out of the monitoring center, day was like night, ash flowed everywhere in the sky, and we had to put on our masks to prevent respiratory diseases. Fortunately, we escaped from the fatal mudflows mixed by the melted ice water and pyroclastic material – it had rushed down the other side of the mountain, reached Baker camp and continued flowing down.

We were treated at a temporary medical centre set up by staff at the monitoring center. In fact, nobody looked like a medic or doctor, as everyone had had different extent of injuries with himself, bruises, bleeding or fractures.


A car belonging to photographer Reid Blackburn, who died in the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens. The site is approximately 17 kilometres from Mount St. Helens.

Later in the day, news came. Without any signs before the eruption and has been dormant for 120 years, it was hard for everyone to accept that the volcano suddenly erupted so vigorously on the beautiful Sunday morning, even with precautions and warning given out 2 months before the eruption, no one had really worried about.



As we heard from the staff, the blast killed 57 people and damaged lives in an area of some 180 sq km, and a vast area was covered with ash and debris. The eruption caused a massive debris avalanche, causing the mountain’s elevation to decrease from 2,950 m to 2,550 m. 250 homes, 47 bridges, 24 km of railways and 300 km of highway were destroyed. Thousands of animals faced death in the eruption, while hundreds of square miles reduced to wasteland. Approximately 2.74 billion US dollars was lost in the disaster.



A survivor paused during the ash cleanup on May 19, 1980, one day after the huge eruption



Enormous quantities of blow-down debris and sediment clogged the Toutle and Cowlitz rivers immediately following the eruption of Mount St. Helens


In the aftermath of the eruption, pyroclastic mudflows destroyed property along the Toutle River, depositing mud to a depth of several feet