Not to be prurient but to underscore how dangerous to human life pyroclastic flows are, the bodies of Maurice and Katia were such that they looked very much like themselves but were turned pitch-black due to their being carbonized by the heat they were subject to per the Japanese vulcanologist who identified their bodies. Nearby, a female Japanese villager survived the cloud in her home but was severely burned. These pyroclastic flows are beautiful to behold but terrible in their effects.
Kim Patrick Noyes
Paso Robles, CA
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:41 AM, Kim Noyes <kimnoyes@gmail.com> wrote:
I found two other worthwhile videos on this tragic but fascinating event from a Japanese perspective.
The first video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=406auDC9xBw&feature=related highlights three natural disasters in Japan in the 1990's....each two years removed from the one before. The first segment features the deadly pyroclastic flow at Mt. Unzen in 1991 and shows some of the aftermath of it including images of burning buildings and a journalist's car demonstrating how hot the pyroclastic flow was and it features a memorial to a Japanese journalist killed along with the Kraffts and Glicken and 39 others. The second segment covers the deadly tsunami at Okushiri in 1993 and the third segment features the Kobe Earthquake in 1995.
The second video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHCmtIl888&feature=related shows a fascinating sequence from the time frame of the deadly 1991 Mt. Unzen pyroclastic flow wherein a Japanese military CH-46 Chinook while taking reporters out on a tour suffers engine failure and makes an emergency landing in a crop field in the danger zone. After a failed attempt to land a Bell 206 Huey next to the downed Chinook due to rotor wash stirring up volcanic ash, the passengers and crew beat a hasty retreat to the nearest phone booth in the nearest village where they are picked up by automobiles.
KimmerOn Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 1:48 AM, Kim Noyes <kimnoyes@gmail.com> wrote:
On this date in 1991 Mount Unzen near Shimabara, in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, experienced a dramatic pyroclastic flow that was many times larger in scope than any previous one up to that point of that eruption. 43 journalists and scientists, including world famous vulcanologists and volcano photographers Maurice and Katia Kafft as well as vulcanologist Harry Glicken were all overtaken and burned alive by the broiling cloud of fast-moving gases and ash.
The relevance of this event to California Disasters is quite simple: California can have these at any gray volcano which includes all our California Cascade volcanoes, most notably, Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak.
I share with you all the below video clips in memoriam to both the Kraffts as well as Heny Glicken, who, ironically enough, had been manning the observation point at what is now Johnston Ridge at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument until the morning of May 18, 1980 when his mentor David Johnston took over to give him a break and thus inadvertently substituted his own life for Glicken's.
Check out the following video clips which are short.
This is a beautiful tribute to the Kraffts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hO381ku1u4&NR=1
This gives more background info to this story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPRoTQYXwuY&feature=related
Some famous volcano footage previously taken by the Kraffts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYKlUoczYw
And even more such: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QCQ_goDcP8&feature=fvw
Check the Wikis:
Wikipedia on Mount Unzen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Unzen
Wikipedia on the Kraffts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katia_and_Maurice_Krafft
Wikipedia on Glicken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Glicken
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