We hope you enjoyed this program proudly brought to you by the wholesome goodness of Nestle
yogurt.
Nestle, a fresh taste for life.
I jumped at the chance to work with you people.
He doesn't look like Holloway.
He doesn't act like Holloway.
So if he's Goldie's new partner, where exactly is Holloway?
Water at 8.30 Monday on Nine.
Channel nine now brings you the results of tonight's lotto draw.
For further details of lotteries and what our results call 1900 989 101.
8.30 Tuesday.
Gordon Elliott hosts world's dumbest criminals.
Crime doesn't get any dumber than this.
Tuesday on Channel Nine.
The earth was born of millions of years of fire and rain.
The heaving crust of the earth, the constant swirling of ocean and air combined to create
the richest diversity of life in the known universe.
The same powerful forces that created life are with us today, seemingly bent on destroying
it.
In the past hundred years, over a million people have been killed by volcanoes and earthquakes.
Another million have perished in hurricanes, tropical cyclones and tornadoes.
The total damage is beyond calculation.
Has Mother Nature gone haywire or are these terrible events simply part of our planet's
eternal drama of creation?
Can we learn to coexist or are we forever destined to be at the mercy of these powerful
forces of nature?
Add interpretation.
San Francisco in 1989 is a growing metropolis.
Its monuments of stone and glass exude permanence.
This is a dangerous illusion.
On October 17th, as its team plays in the World Series,
the city suddenly and dramatically comes apart at the seams.
Video cameras citywide capture a singular moment of terror.
It is the strongest earthquake to hit California since 1906.
The quake itself is felt over 400,000 square miles,
including Oregon and Nevada.
The paper said that the whole seismographic, where the big one was,
was a minute, but I would say it was closer to five,
because it shook a long time and it just kept coming,
and it kept coming, and it kept coming again.
And it was like riding a roller coaster.
But then when I actually saw what had happened,
I just in my wildest imagination had no comprehension
that Mother Nature could be that destructive and just, you know.
The images of devastation are broadcast all over the world.
The massive destruction of buildings, the loss of some 60 lives,
and the collapse of the very symbols of California,
its freeways, overpasses, and bridges.
Earthquakes are particularly frightening to many people
because we feel so out of control.
We can't predict them.
Why do people want them predicted in the first place?
Well, that would give us more control over the situation.
If we knew when it was coming, if we knew they happened in the early morning,
if we could put some constraints on it, we would feel more in control.
In 1906, no one is aware of the seismic danger
when San Francisco is suddenly shaken by the strongest quake
in California's recorded history.
The heart of the city lies in ruins.
Raging fires follow.
28,000 buildings are destroyed, leaving 300,000 homeless
and more than 1,000 dead.
The bigger the earthquake is, the longer it lasts.
And the 1906 earthquake lasted almost two minutes.
Most of the buildings came down.
The fires got going and burned many of the rest of them.
It has taken 60 years to create what, at the time,
is the most important city west of the Rockies.
It takes just two minutes to destroy it.
California is sitting on what's called a plate boundary.
So we have these two very large sections of the Earth's crust
that come together at the San Andreas Fault,
and they are moving with respect to each other.
The Pacific Ocean is moving towards the northwest.
They move slowly.
They move at about 1 and 3 quarters inches per year.
It's about the rate at which your fingernails grow.
An earthquake happens when you have sudden slip
across the surface of a fault.
That releases energy.
If you're slipping over a larger area,
every point on that surface gives off energy.
You have a larger area, you have a bigger earthquake.
The Pacific Ocean is moving towards the northwest.
Sunday, action goes into overtime with Bruce Willis.
He's got a new job, a new partner,
and his old bag of tricks.
I never had a woman partner before.
Neither have I.
She's by the book.
We have to give them a ticket.
He's by whatever it takes.
Do you like to jump off bridges?
Together, they're explosive.
I'm trying to solve a matter here!
What murder?
The Electrifying Movie.
Who's the best cop now?
8 Buddy Sunday, Striking Distance, Channel 9.
Babyface, the most awarded artist of the 90s,
delivers his best album yet.
The Day.
Featuring Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Boyz II Nev,
and the smash duet with Stevie Wonder.
Babyface, the album The Day.
Solo now and be doesn't get much better than this.
OK, people, settle down.
Today's lesson, wearing contact lenses.
They'll hurt.
Not new one-day AccuView daily disposable lenses.
High in water and so thin,
they float on your feet.
They're so thin, they're so thin,
they're so thin, they're so thin,
they float on your eyes.
So comfy.
New lenses every day.
New one-day AccuView.
So comfortable and fresh,
it's like wearing nothing at all.
Call for a free trial pair.
Your pupils are willing.
It was so funny.
She's been yacking to that boy forever.
He's overseas. She misses him.
Overseas? What's that costing?
Relax. She's already talked for 15 minutes.
The rest of the course, half price.
That's right. All day Saturday,
you can call Telstra 0011 International
anywhere in the world,
and after 15 minutes,
the rest of the call is half price.
Half price?
It's only, Dad.
Are you there? Easy.
It's incredible.
Telstra, making life easier.
Milky Way's delicious Milky Center
is whipped and whipped
to make it the lightest chocolate treat
you can give them
so it won't ruin their appetite.
Come on.
Milky Way, the lightest way to make their day.
Did you use the GTX?
Bust. That GTX costs a few bucks, actually,
so I got the ticket. Maybe...
Bruno, this car cost me a lot of dough,
and I ain't risking it to save a couple of lousy bucks, okay?
Yep, yep.
It's the best.
Yeah, yeah.
If your car's worth a couple of extra bucks,
it's with Castrol GTX.
The biggest quake ever recorded in North America
strikes Alaska in 1964.
Measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale,
it shakes the ground
for a seemingly interminable four minutes.
Parts of downtown Anchorage drop some 20 feet.
The city is completely devastated.
Then an eerie phenomenon occurs.
120 miles away, all the water is mysteriously sucked
from Valdez Harbor.
A shipboard sailor records it on film.
What he captures is the creation of a killer wave, a tsunami.
The huge tremor sends a massive surge rippling south
at 500 miles per hour.
Only half a day later,
it pounds the coast of Japan, some 4,000 miles away.
As an island nation,
Japan is a frequent victim to these killer waves,
and it is no stranger to other seismic dangers.
10% of the world's earthquakes occur in Japan.
One of the worst is in September 1923,
the Great Kanto earthquake.
Five full minutes triggers massive firestorms.
They rage for days.
Two-thirds of Tokyo and almost all of Yokohama are destroyed.
And worse, a staggering 140,000 people die.
Today, Japan has the world's most advanced earthquake
preparedness program and strict building codes.
But in December 1994, Japan is tested once again.
An earthquake shakes the ground for 35 seconds.
Buildings once thought to be quake-proof
crumble to the ground.
Early morning commuters are killed when expressways collapse.
The ancient city of Kobe goes up in flames,
along with Japan's illusions of preparedness.
I at least have the intellectual knowledge
that I'm far more likely to be murdered in Los Angeles
than I am to die in an earthquake.
We kill 100 times as many people in drive-by shootings as we do
in earthquakes, so I'm not really particularly afraid of dying
because I know the risk is so low.
Los Angeles is a place where creating dreams is a major industry,
a city of illusions.
But reality strikes hard in the early morning hours of January 17, 1994.
It is the worst earthquake in the history of the city.
Only its timing, two hours before rush hour,
spares Los Angeles a catastrophic death toll.
The whole city seems disorient.
Look up, I'm going southbound, and there's traffic in the southbound lanes
coming at me in the number one lane.
I'm southbound on the 5, and I'm in shock.
There's traffic coming straight at me.
Nine freeways collapse.
The damage toll is between $15 and $30 billion,
one of the most costly natural disasters in American history.
We didn't bother to try to get stuff out.
We lost everything.
Our house shook, our bed collapsed,
our dresser fell over onto us on the bed.
And everything started burning down.
Everything is burnt.
We have nothing that happens before an event,
so we can't predict a particular event.
We can only talk about the long-term.
We've seen small earthquakes in almost every state of the Union.
We've seen damaging earthquakes in more than half of them.
So even though California has them more often,
many, many other states face a significant risk.
The Los Angeles quake reminds us that while we may someday
learn to predict earthquakes, we will never prevent them.
Most well-reinforced construction withstands the tremors,
so we must continue striving to build a safer environment.
On National 9 News...
Tears have already been spilled for one of our Johnny stores.
Tomorrow the push is on to save another.
But is it a mission impossible?
Tomorrow from 6 o'clock on 9.
This will be the biggest betting sale in La Corgna's 140 years.
La Corgna's betting sale is bigger than we ever imagined.
Come inside, I'll show you why.
Look at the bargain hunters. It's no wonder. Look at the prices.
Better back care, $3.99. Sleep Haven Grandeur, save $3.55.
Sorento 11 piece, $4.89.
Hundreds of people have already saved up to 50% on their mattresses.
More on signboards, $1.99, and mattresses for $22.
This is La Corgna's biggest ever betting sale.
How big is it? It's big.
It's big.
Let's get it for you!
Get out of my face!
Anaconda.
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Try SPC Cool Fruits.
Now in the larger, more satisfying size.
Everybody's going to Rocker Brothers.
The team at Rocker Brothers can help you with all your auto parts and accessories.
And with a large range of parts always in stock, you're sure to find the part for your car at the lowest price.
From shockers to oil filters, car cleaners to paints, batteries to compressors,
mags to steering wheel covers, tyres to servicing.
Rockers have got the lot.
Don't drive all over town for your motoring needs.
Go straight to Rockers.
Everything you want at Rocker Brothers.
It was so funny.
She's been yacking to that boy forever.
He's overseas. She misses me.
Overseas? What's that costing?
Relax. She's already talked for 15 minutes.
The rest of the call's half price.
That's right. All day Saturday, you can call Telstra 0011 International anywhere in the world,
and after 15 minutes, the rest of the call is half price.
Half price?
It's only dad.
Easy.
It's incredible.
Telstra, making life easier.
7 o'clock Monday.
It's going to be a very exciting week on sales.
With a special sales surprise.
The General will be joining us all the way through the week, which is going to be a lot of fun.
Joining the excitement of the world's richest quiz.
So that's all to come, so stick with us anyhow.
Sales 7 o'clock Monday on 9.
A brilliant day in America's heartland.
This is the nation's breadbasket, and any sign of rain is a welcome sight.
But these dark clouds harbor something far more ominous.
This is no ordinary storm, but a powerful front capable of producing deadly cyclones of destruction.
Forecasters at the National Weather Service are on the alert.
This is tornado season.
Their time on Earth is often less than 15 minutes, and their paths sometimes just hundreds of feet.
But these twisters pack a lethal wallop.
Tornado on the ground on I-44.
Car is split, we've got numerous people injured.
I-44, tornado on the ground.
Here it comes.
It's coming at us.
The power line is coming down. Watch out.
They're hot.
Come on.
Go away.
Every tornado is a potential killer.
Updrafts can suck up houses, cars, animals, and people,
hurling them through the air for hundreds of yards.
Trees just blew over.
Look at the cars.
Get away. Get away. Get away.
Where's everybody?
Where is everybody?
Watch out.
Where is everybody?
Watch your line.
Oh my God.
Are you guys okay?
We're okay.
The winds from a tornado are the fastest on Earth,
often exceeding 300 miles per hour,
toppling buildings, filling the air with deadly flying debris.
Let's go, Craig. Let's go.
Listen to the wind. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
Storm chasers risk their lives to witness and document tornadoes' torturous paths.
Watch faster.
Greg's catching us.
You got to go, buddy.
Oh my God. There it is.
Everything's blowing up.
It's coming in the right.
It's two blocks west of me. It's coming in.
Oh, come on. Get in the car.
Get in the car.
Oh, there's a parade everywhere. Move. Move. Move.
The plane's outbreak, 1991.
In just two days, 54 tornadoes rage across five Midwestern states.
The damage is staggering, over $250 million.
The most violent of the twisters strikes McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas.
It levels apartment buildings, homes, a school, and a hospital.
So I was going off for 15, 20 minutes, and, but I thought, no, no way would it hit this way.
Miraculously, there are no fatalities. Still, some 16 are injured.
It's like a, almost like a disaster movie scene that you see with the twisted cars and the houses that are blown apart.
Amazing devastation in a short period of time.
It just shows you how 30 minutes can make a tremendous difference in somebody's life.
Now the cyclone intensifies and heads for Andover, Kansas.
A local officer warns residents of a mobile home park to evacuate.
Some of them were running to the shelter. Some of them were running to their cars.
There was one guy that was walking along with his dog.
Minutes later, the tornado strikes. Hundreds of homes are obliterated. 15 people are killed.
You can't describe it.
How do you feel now?
I'd like to be alone for a few minutes. Got some flanking to do.
Tornadoes occur worldwide, but most are found in the Great Plains of America, Tornado Alley.
That is where the conditions that form these strong rotating thunderstorms occur most prevenantly.
On the east side of the Rocky Mountains is where we have a collision of very cold air coming down from Canada
that strikes the very warm moist air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico.
And those kind of collisions are the perfect spawning grounds for these rotating thunderstorms.
These storms, called supercells, often bring showers of hail.
Hail stones pelt the Earth at speeds of 100 miles an hour, a deadly rain of icy shrapnel.
Most hail stones are smaller than a quarter, but some are as large as baseballs.
Hail is often accompanied by lightning. Each discharge is incredibly powerful, up to 30 million volts.
It's the second leading cause of weather deaths.
But the most destructive spawn of these supercells are tornadoes.
We have this scale that we call the F scale. The F stands for Fujita, a renowned scientist from the University of Chicago.
And F0 and 1 tornadoes are weak tornadoes. F5 are the strongest tornadoes, the ones that we think are on the order of 300 miles per hour.
In an F5 tornado, it just wipes the foundation clean of everything that's gone. It even scours pavement off of highways.
See it right there? Wow! Concrete has been scoured.
So you get caught in something like that. There's no hope for you then.
Just to see them in motion, it's like seeing the sky animated. Things are moving so fast.
And just seeing a tornado is the ultimate goal of my pursuit ever since.
Tornado is only about 100 yards away.
It is more than simply the thrill of the hunt that draws so many to follow tornadoes. There's also the excitement of discovery.
It was a very good phrase put forth by one of our renowned scientists in our field.
And he said that the tornado is the last frontier in meteorology. And that's arguable.
But what he went on to say is that it's the only easily identifiable phenomena whose internal structure and dynamics remain highly speculative.
If tornadoes remain essentially mysterious, they are also possessed of a terrible beauty.
Still, in America's heartland, a darkening sky can fill the heartiest souls with petrifying fear.
On a current affair, tough justice.
If you do the crime, you will do time.
The schoolboy going to jail after his father dogged him in.
The way the law stands, it's just automatic.
Dad just meant to teach him a lesson.
I hate to have to make the decision again.
But they both got caught out by a brand new law.
It's putting people in jail who shouldn't be there.
And shopping wars. Supermarket bullies sending small business to the wall.
They're the worst.
And it doesn't mean a better deal for consumers.
It's an illusion.
300% markup.
Plus Mike Bunro with ChatBuster, Tina Arena next week.
It was so funny.
She's been yacking to that boy forever.
He's overseas. She misses him.
Overseas? What's that costing?
Relax. She's already talked for 15 minutes. The rest of the course costs half the price.
That's right. All day Saturday, you can call Telstra 0011 International anywhere in the world.
And after 15 minutes, the rest of the call is half price.
Half price?
Tony, Dad.
Are you there?
Easy.
It's incredible.
Telstra. Making life easier.
Lindsay was preparing for a hard race.
Fueling is critical.
I see strong iced coffee. Fuel for the day.
The team at Rocker Brothers have a full range of workshop services to cater for all your motoring needs.
From wheel alignments to full servicing.
Our high quality workshops can help you.
All Rocker Brothers qualified mechanics go through continuous training to make sure they're up to date with the very latest technology.
With a large range of parts in stock, you can be sure that the job will be completed on time.
And remember, Rockers fix the price before they fix your car.
So for the best price on quality servicing, call Rocker Brothers.
Darlington, Para Hills and Elizabeth.
I see so many kids have an early burst of energy and fizzle out completely by mid-morning.
Research now shows some foods release energy quickly, while others, like Kellogg's Sultana brand, release energy gradually to help kids stop feeling hungry.
From where I stand, there's no hiding the fact that when kids aren't hungry, they find it easier to concentrate and get through their day.
With a fly.
Kellogg's Sultana brand helps kids shine right through the day.
Up and at them.
Now's the time to get your grand ready for work.
The Yellow Pages are closing now. Call 132378.
Weather experts are especially vigilant from July to October, for they know that any storm off the coast of Africa can quickly grow into a monster.
With violent winds, deadly surges and torrential downpours, hurricanes have a long, violent history in America.
Eight to ten times a year, the U.S. is struck by hurricanes, and they can strike anywhere from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic seaboard.
Before satellite tracking, there was little warning of approaching storms.
In 1900, a hurricane catches Galveston, Texas, unprepared, killing 6,000. To this day, the nation's most lethal natural disaster.
By 1969, prediction has improved, but few heed the warnings, as Camille, America's most violent storm, strikes the Gulf states.
When powerful winds combine with extremely low pressure, they create a mountain of sea.
It heads ashore as a massive wave known as storm surge.
These surges account for over 90 percent of hurricane deaths.
Storm surges from Camille leave 500 dead and cause one billion dollars in damage.
A hurricane begins as a small rainstorm, but soon, drawing energy from warm ocean waters and high-level winds, it is stirred into a fierce tropical cyclone.
And the space shuttle provides a breathtaking view of the scope of these massive cyclones.
At the National Hurricane Center in Miami, computer models are used for predictions, but much is left to first-hand observation.
Well, during Hurricane Hugo, we saw that the steering currents were in a situation where it could approach Puerto Rico, so five of us got in a plane and waited for it there.
It actually clipped the northeast tip of the island, so we got in the eye of the storm there.
As the eye of the storm passes, the winds intensify again.
Jim Leonard retreats to his hotel.
There, he hopes to film the more violent half of the hurricane.
And as it got stronger and stronger, debris was starting to be lifted off the parking lot, and it looked like it was going to get blown back toward us.
So we decided at that point to start going down the stairway.
As we're going down the stairwell, the rain is being driven into the walls, through the stairs, coming down the stairway, and the wind you see here squealing.
At this point, it's probably in excess of 150 miles an hour.
And water is getting into the wiring of the building, and it's causing the lights to flicker on and off like that.
It was a real adrenaline rush during that time, and we were seeing the ultimate hurricane at that point.
This Force Four hurricane pounds Puerto Rico, crippling the island's electric power and water supply systems.
Before Hugo is done with the Caribbean, at least 27 people are killed and upwards of 150,000 are left homeless.
The island's resort economies are devastating.
Then Hugo heads for the Carolinas. A half million people evacuate.
It sends massive storm surges into the coastline.
By the time the storm spins itself out, it leaves 21 dead in the U.S. and causes $18 billion in damage.
Three years later, the Eastern Seaboard braces itself for yet another killer storm.
Its name is Andrew, and it's taken dead aim on South Florida.
As the storm approaches, Florida undertakes the largest evacuation in American history, more than a million people.
But how far can they flee from what appears to be a growing catastrophe?
One important thing with hurricanes is when they're coming in as an intensifying storm,
you're going to get much higher wind gusts than you will with a storm that's coming in leveled off or weakening.
Where Hurricane Andrew came in, it was rapidly intensifying at the time it made landfall, and also, which was even more strange,
it was still intensifying after it got within 10 miles inland.
And so the wind gusts in Hurricane Andrew, I think, were higher, much more destructive.
Just off Miami, Andrew's winds are blowing at 140 miles an hour.
Then, in the dark early hours of August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew bursts through the windows and doors of South Florida.
It hits hard, of all places, the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
There, it breaks the wind gauge at 164 miles per hour.
It tears apart Miami's infrastructure, houses and buildings, bridges, water towers, and power lines.
The city is plunged into a terrifying darkness.
The morning hours reveal the power of this raging tempest, and it has spared little or nothing in its path.
15,000 boats, 100,000 buildings, and a zone of devastation the size of 12 Manhattan Islands.
With $30 billion in damage, Andrew is the most devastating weather disaster ever to hit the United States.
But soon, the rebuilding begins.
Even the forces of nature can't keep us from the lure of the coastline and the beauty of the sea.
630 Sunday on Our World, the forgotten islands of Torres Strait, islands steeped in history, beauty, and a simple way of life.
Also the stunning Bungle Bungle Ranges.
Our World, 630 Sunday on 9.
Everyone needs iron. It helps carry oxygen to the brain.
And as a baby's brain develops to 80% of adult size in the first two years, without enough iron, their intellectual ability can be impaired.
So, what's an excellent source of iron for a baby's brain development?
Beef!
In Japan, the Nikkei Index once again took a fall.
Lean beef, your best source of essential daily iron.
For refreshing natural fruit juice, simply packed with the finest fruit.
Try SPC Cool Fruits.
Now in the larger, more satisfying size.
You're about to witness the unbelievable.
The brand new Pentax MZ50.
Compact, simple to use, fully automatic, with a great choice of lens combinations.
Unbelievable but true, a Pentax Compact SLR at the lowest price ever.
All from an unbelievable $499.
Now available from Diamond's Camera and Video, 165 Rundle Street.
Fling scenes preparing for a hard race.
Fueling's critical.
I see strong iced coffee. Fuel for the day.
Strap.
Stop an atom.
No, no, no, no.
Now's the time to get your ass ready for work.
Bye bye. Bye bye.
The Yellow Pages are closing now.
830 Tuesday, World's Dumbest Criminals.
The Aussie bank robbers without a clue.
They had no getaway vehicle.
The World's Dumbest Safe Crackers.
He said it's not even locked.
Gordon Elliott hosts World's Dumbest Criminals, followed by Reel TV, 830 Tuesday.
From seething cauldrons deep within the earth, molten rock emerges.
Then, like an incandescent tide, it sears its way across the landscape,
or explodes in fountains of red-hot lava.
Volcanoes are among the most dramatic spectacles on earth, and the most deadly.
Throughout history, they have buried whole cities, killed hundreds of thousands of people,
and darkened the skies with lethal gases.
Yet, for all their terrible power, volcanoes are among nature's mightiest builders,
creators of mountains, plains, and islands.
Among them, the Hawaiian Islands.
This tropical paradise was born of violent volcanic eruptions from the ocean floor.
Scientists from all over the world and photographers like John Kiergaard descend on Kilauea,
which has been erupting continually since 1983.
These lava samples provide insight into the inner workings of the earth.
The trick is to leave it in long enough to get a nice clove of lava,
but not so long that the cable becomes stuck to the channel wall.
To the ancient Hawaiians, Kilauea is home to Pele, a fire goddess.
The Hawaiians have also named the two main types of lava.
Pahoehoe forms smooth rivers of stone.
When cooled, they're used as foot trails in the park.
But a'a is sharp and crusty, and the cry a person makes when stepping on it.
The new flows from Kilauea have buried more than 35 square miles, roughly the size of Manhattan.
They continue scorching their way through the surrounding woodlands, oblivious to real estate values.
The park's visitor center, host to some two million tourists a year,
is also threatened by these rivers of fire.
Firefighters hose down the leading edge with cooling water, hoping to solidify the lava and stop the flow.
After a full day's dousing, the tactic appears to work.
The molten river has been stopped.
But Pele, the fire goddess, refuses to concede defeat.
The following day, the deadly flow resumes again, and this time it is relentless.
Now the molten lava is at the very doorstep of the visitor center.
The fire crews pour on thousands of gallons of water.
It's a futile effort.
The lava flows continue on, obliterating the town of Kalapana.
As the river of lava flows into the sea, it cools and solidifies, eventually turning a bay into a beach.
The earth continues to create, even as it destroys.
Most people assume that lava is the most dangerous discharge from volcanoes, but historically there are far more deadly ejecta.
In Mount Vesuvius 79 AD, a deadly torrent of hot mud, ash, and lethal gas blankets the Roman city of Pompeii.
At least 2,000 are buried alive.
At Mount Pele in Martinique 1902, a volcanic eruption sends a glowing cloud in a noiseless rush towards the port city of Saint-Pierre.
30,000 are killed in minutes.
There is no lava, just a boiling black cloud of superheated gas and ash.
It's called pyroclastic flow.
In Saint-Pierre, only two people survive.
78 years later, in March 1980, tremors shake Mount St. Helens in Washington State.
Steam and ash begin venting from the crest of the mountain.
The researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey quickly set up observation posts.
Then on May 18, an explosion erupts with the power of 500 atomic bombs blowing away the face of the mountain.
A second eruption sends a cloud of ash and gas 12 miles into the air and a lethal pyroclastic flow rushing down the mountain.
This location we're standing on right now was covered by 200-foot-high fir trees, complete virgin forest.
And all of the area surrounding us and in the background were also covered with virgin forest.
This forest was totally destroyed.
As you can see, trees were either broken off right at the ground, leaving these stumps with a shredded end facing away from the volcano.
The trunks were carried, in some cases actually miles away, by this blast, which consisted of dense rock material,
hot gases and ash traveling at several hundred miles per hour.
The heat from the blast melts snow and ice, sending floodwaters down on the valley communities.
Volcanic mud and water are a potent mixture, swift-moving rivers of concrete plowing everything in their path.
Two scientists die. One of them is found buried alive.
Tonight on Wimbledon, it's raining with Aussie tennis talent.
Follow the fortunes of the informed Patrick Rafter and Jason Stoltenberg, and watch the Woodies, Mark Woodford and Todd Woodbridge succeed in the singles.
Live coverage of Wimbledon continues tonight on Nine.
Barry Solomon's Goodyrugs must drastically reduce rug stocks.
There's absolutely thousands, so many that I'm reducing every single rug at our suburban stores too.
They're all half price or less.
Act before 5.30pm June 30 and huge savings are assured.
I personally guarantee there won't be a better time to buy a rug.
Rush to a Goodyrug store near you, because when the financial year ends, so does this sale.
This chef is preparing soup of the day.
And so is this one.
Continental's new soup of the day. You won't believe it's packet soup.
What do you reckon?
That's not so bad.
Quite ice mate. Perfect.
Oh, that's the worst of it to be honest.
Straight up.
Stopping at him.
Now's the time to get Brad ready for work.
The yellow pages are closing now. Call 132378.
Channel 9 now brings you the results of tonight's lotto draw.
For further details of lotteries and lotto results call 1900 989 101.
Clark Air Force Base, the Philippines, 1991.
With some 15,000 military personnel, this is a crucial link in America's defense of the Pacific.
But in June, low rumblings portend a critical threat just 10 miles away.
U.S. geologists are brought in to assess the situation.
The tremors come from Mount Pinatubo, a volcano that has been dormant for 600 years.
They determine Pinatubo is ready to erupt.
Even more ominous, its deadly flow would follow the path of its previous eruption,
directly to where Clark Air Force Base now stands.
Everybody wants to know, well, do we evacuate now?
People don't want probabilities. They want black and white.
Yes, no, it's going to erupt. It's not. It's going to be big. It's not.
We should move. We shouldn't.
The longer a volcano lies dormant, the more violent the eruption.
Pinatubo has had six long centuries to intensify.
Still, the geologists feel they can give General Studer at least six hours warning.
And so the base commander will wait and see.
So it's not as critical as a battery being used.
Yeah, that was part of the point.
But to Filipino authorities, the risk is already too great for the civilian population.
There are some 80,000 people in the area.
And so it begins, the largest peacetime evacuation in Philippine history.
Meanwhile, the American geologists issue a grim warning.
Seismic activity now warrants the highest alert level, four.
And I said, you know, Dave, I think maybe we're witnessing the precursor to a historic eruption.
And he says, don't talk like that. I want to hear that.
General Studer issues the order. Clark Air Force Base will be evacuated.
But some 1,500 personnel will stay behind to prevent looting.
American and Filipino scientists also remain to monitor the volcano's increasingly dangerous rumblings.
On June 12, Mount Pinatubo blows.
The first explosion sends a mushroom cloud of smoke some 10 miles into the sky, blotting out the sun.
Then on June 15, the main eruption hurls grapefruit-sized stones some 25 miles.
The eruption is so intense it creates its own thunderheads.
The last remaining personnel quickly evacuate Clark Air Force Base.
We got down the road five miles and we decided that we had been lacking in courage.
So we returned to the base and got our written off going again.
Andy Lockhart had just made some popcorn and John looks over and sees Andy eating popcorn and says,
what are you doing eating popcorn at a time like this?
And Andy says, I always eat popcorn at this part of the movie.
Mount Pinatubo erupts 26 times, blanketing hundreds of square miles in a gray-green ash,
including all of Manila, 60 miles away.
It sucks the heat from the air, turning day to night and summer into winter.
Two dozen towns and the homes of more than a million Filipinos are crushed under the weight of ash and water.
But 80,000 have been successfully evacuated.
The loss of life, over 500, is low for an eruption of this magnitude,
thanks to the prudent teamwork of both scientists and government officials.
But 200,000 acres of farmland are buried and half of the livestock will die.
Mount Pinatubo's eruption creates a gaseous veil around the world so immense it actually lowers the Earth's temperature,
the signature of the most powerful volcano in the 20th century.
Thunderstorms are astounding in their violence and their terror,
but hurricanes and thunderstorms act as Earth's air conditioners.
They cool the Earth and are essential to life.
The forces of nature are the primeval sources of life on Earth.
Their powerful workings form our continents, reshaping the world through dramatic upheavals.
In this way, they continue to create our splendid and majestic topography and a wonderfully diverse planet.
This diversity gives us millions of species of life.
Mother Earth is a living entity, and her natural forces are the dynamic agents of change, growth, and, most important, creation.
In just a moment, we bring you all the action on and off the course, live from Wimbledon.
And don't miss your action-packed Sunday night movie, Striking Distance, starring Bruce Willis. That's tomorrow night at 8.30 here on 9.
Tuesday, Reel TV. His life hangs by a thread. The horses are on the track.
And a magic trick that turns into real-life trial. Reel TV at the new time, 9 o'clock Tuesday.
Newsbreak, brought to you by National Mutual.
Good evening. Joe Hall in the National 9 newsroom.
Prime Minister Howard has gained ground in Washington in his battle against binding international greenhouse gas controls.
But during his meeting with President Clinton, he almost ended up in a White House hedge.
Melbourne homicide detectives are investigating a fatal dry-fire shooting in the city's Nightclub District earlier tonight.
Witnesses say a passenger in a passing car fired several shots, hitting a man in his 20s in the head.
Meanwhile, Sydney police are trying to determine if an armed man who they shot dead on a Bondi beach could understand their commands to surrender.
He was shot four times in the chest.
China has warned Hong Kong will send thousands of troops into the former British colony after the handover on Tuesday.
Currently on the Ashes tour, cricketer Shane Warne has become a dad for the first time.
His wife Simone gave birth to their daughter Brooke last night.
The national weather now showers for Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. A fine Sunday in the other capitals.
And that's all from the newsroom for now. Good night.