The Philippines is one of the most hazard-prone countries in the world alongside Japan, India, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia. It sits across a major plate boundary meaning it faces significant risks from volcanoes and earthquakes. The Philippines is made up of around 7000 islands all mainly mountains with areas of coastal lowlands and many people work on steeply sloping land of the mountains dues to the good soil for agriculture. Being 25% bigger then the UK it has a population of 91 million, which was recorded in 2007.

In April 991 Mount Pinatubo started to show signs of eruption with steam explosions and minor earthquakes and an exclusion zone was set up but the government. By June 9th 58 000 people had been evacuated and by the 12th it had gone up to almost 200 000. This was when the first eruptions started sending 20km of ash into the air. On the 15th June there was a second eruption and a dome on the side of the volcano collapsed causing a pyroclastic blast – a dense cloud of lava with bursting gas bubbles. 350 people died and others died in camps due to being exposed to disease whilst 80 000 hectares of farmland were buried underneath the ash. There was a huge economic loss of $ 710 million mainly due to agricultural and property damage.

The Philippines is mainly considered a disaster hotspot due to the fact is lies across a major plate boundary, the Philippine and Eurasian, causing a frequent amount of volcanoes and earthquakes. The Eurasian plate is forced beneath the Philippine and these series of ‘jerks’ are what cause earthquakes. This is known as a destructive plate boundary because one plate is destroyed underneath another. 80% of the worlds volcanoes occur along destructive plate boundaries. Its northern and eastern coasts also face the Pacific Ocean which is the most tsunami prone which is highly affected as the Philippines lies