SIGN: ERUPTION Mount St. Helens, member of the Cascade Range in Washington state, blew its top with an explosive force 500 times more powerful that Hiroshima. Mount St. Helens was quickly transformed from a mountain towering nearly 10,000 feet high to a flattop under 2,000 feet. Hot ash was sent 12 miles into the atmosphere by the blast. DavId Crockett, a photographer for a Seattle TV station, heard a huge roar and ran as he saw a wall of mud moving toward him. Crockett moved along the road quickly, speaking into his sound camera, "I am walking toward the only light I can see. I can hear the mountain rumble. At this very moment I have to say. 'Honest to God, I believe ] am dead.' The ash burns my eyes, burns my eyes! ... It is very. very hard to breathe and very dark. If I could only breathe air. God, just give me a breath!" Crockett was rescued by a helicopter ten hours later. The explosion left 18 dead and 71 missing. Among them was Harry Truman, a crusty 84-year-old. who refused evacuation, telling audiences on national television that "no one knows more about this mountain than Harry, and it don't dare blow up on him." Mount St. ...Helens' eruption began March 27 and ended in an _ Wide World Photos explosion on June 1. Geologists estimate it spewed as much mud and ash as was dumped on ancier!t Pompeii, the famous city buried by a volcano in 79 A.D. ABOVE: MOUNT ST. HELENS blows ash and smoke twelve miles into the atmosphere. Cities as Jar east as Cizicago reported ash particles Jrom the eruption. 45 World News
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