On 18th May 1980, 57 people lost their lives when Mount St. Helens in the USA erupted, spreading destruction for many miles around. I remember watching the great plumes of ash tumbling up into the air as I watched the incident unfold on television as a child, thousands of miles away.
Forty years on, Max Robertson posts a contribution about this devastating eruption in memory of those who died, including David Alexander Johnston, a US Geological Survey volcanologist manning an observation post just six miles away. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting the words ‘Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!’.
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