"Back then, volcanoes were in the zeitgeist. Two years prior, the Mount Saint Helens volcano in the United States spectacularly blew half of its flank away. It would go down as one of the most iconic and studied eruptions in history, and an inflection point for modern volcanology. The fact that the blast was sideways was unexpected and killed 57 people, but the eruption itself was anticipated through monitoring, and authorities evacuated more than 2,000 people in advance."
"El Chichón, by contrast, caught everybody by surprise, with three separate explosive phases. It measured 5 on the volcanic explosivity index (VEI), which describes eruption scale - the same as Mt St Helens, as well as Vesuvius in 79 CE. Hot avalanches of rock, ash and gas flattened whole swaths of the jungle, setting off fires, damming rivers and destroying buildings. Ash from the explosions covered regions 70 km away, collapsing roofs and creating mudflows (lahars), and volcanic particles even reached Guatemala."
El Chichón was a tree-covered hill in southern Mexico that had been unrecognized as a volcano and showed no recorded activity for centuries. In spring 1982 it erupted unexpectedly in three explosive phases, reaching VEI 5. The eruptions produced pyroclastic flows that flattened jungle, ignited fires, dammed rivers, destroyed buildings, and generated ashfall up to 70 km away and lahars that collapsed roofs. Volcanic particles reached neighboring Guatemala. At least 2,000 people died and 20,000 became homeless, marking Mexico's worst modern volcanic disaster. A 2006 inspection found a kilometre-wide crater with a hot, acidic, color-changing lake and ongoing geothermal gas activity.
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