Under the lahar: Bacolor's sunken church

Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, but Bacolor's worst days came later. Each rainy season, rain carried the volcano's loose ash and rock down into the lowlands as lahar.

October 1995

In 1995 the flows reached the town itself. Lahar buried Bacolor under as much as 20 feet of debris, raising its ground level, and most of its 21 barangays were buried. Barangay Cabalantian was covered completely.

The church that stayed

The San Guillermo Parish Church was filled to roughly half its height. Residents saved its altars and religious objects, and the church kept serving as a place of worship. Today you enter through what were once upper-floor windows. The building did not sink, Let's Go Pampanga points out: the ground rose around it.

The town later became the main location of the 2009 television series May Bukas Pa, and a museum in the church complex documents its history.

Visiting

Treat it as both a heritage site and a church: dress modestly, avoid sightseeing during services and ask before photographing people. Nearby, the Cabetican shrine tells the same story.