The vehicle to the right was suspended 3 m above the ground between the tops of two broken trees by the devastating pyroclastic surges of the 21 January 1951 eruption of Mount Lamington. The vehicle was located in the village of Higaturu, 10 km N of the volcano. Velocities of the pyroclastic surges were estimated to be in excess of 120 km per hour. The high-temperature surges destroyed the village, removing houses from their foundations and demolishing a steel-framed hospital building.

Photo by Tony Taylor, 1951 (Australia Bureau of Mineral Resources).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Human Impacts

Keywords: human impacts | pyroclastic surge | environmental impact | deposit | pyroclastic density current (PDC)

Lamington