From its first rumblings in March 1980, Mount St Helens drew the nation's attention. Residents and loggers were evacuated and roads were closed, but by April the entrances to the restricted zone around the steaming peak were jammed with reporters and sightseers. But the mountain didn't seem to be doing much, and impatient residents demanded to be allowed back to their homes. Even the official line became blurred when Harry Truman, operator of the Lodge at Spirit Lake who refused to move out, became a national celebrity and was, incredibly, congratulated on his "common sense" by Washington's governor.

A convoy of homeowners was waiting at the barriers, about to go and collect their possessions, when the explosion finally came on May 18 - not upwards but sideways, ripping a great chunk out of the mountainside. An avalanche of debris slid into Spirit Lake, raising it by two hundred feet and turning it into a steaming cauldron of mud, as dark clouds of ash buried Truman and suffocated loggers on a nearby slope. Altogether, 57 people died on the mountain: a few were there officially, but most, like Harry Truman, had ignored the warnings. The wildlife population was harder hit: about a million and a half animals - deer, elk, mountain goats, cougar and bears - were killed, and thousands of fish were boiled alive in sediment-filled rivers. There were dire economic effects, too, as falling ash devastated the land, and millions of feet of timber were lost

Mount St Helens

• Mount St Helens
• The eruption of Mount St Helens

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