Mount St. Helens, the once serene, cone-shaped peak that dominated the skyline northeast of Clark County and stood guard over the beautiful Spirit Lake recreation area, erupted with a force likened to an atom bomb Sunday, killing at least six and leaving 21 missing.

The mountain about 45 minutes from Vancouver’s back door, blew at 8:32 a.m. Sunday with an explosion that was heard 200 miles away in Canada, but was unheard throughout the Vancouver-Portland area. The blast left the snow-capped mountain about 1,300 feet shorter than it was two days ago, spread death and destruction throughout the Toutle River valley north and west of the mountain and sent a gigantic ash cloud east.

By late morning today, that cloud hand fanned out across several Northwest Rocky Mountain States and was expected to continue all the way to New England.

Nine persons, apparent survivors of the eruption, were spotted by rescue helicopters today near the mountain. It was unknown whether they were among the 21 reported missing earlier.

Five of the persons were found about eight miles from the volcano, which continues to spew huge amounts of ash and steam. Four others were found four to five miles from the mountain, near Fawn Lake. They were described as two adults, a child and an infant. No names were available.

Helicopters could not land to pick up the nine because of poor visibility caused by volcanic ash.

Other survivors were seen 20 miles from the volcano, searchers reported, and helicopters were sent to them.

A volcano expert on Monday predicted Mount St. Helens will continue spewing ash for two or three days, then lava will emerge. Al Eggers, a geography professor at the University of Puget Sound, also said lava and mudflows could continue to spill from the mountain for 15 to 20 years. The last eruption of the volcano, in 1857, lasted that long.

The Pandora’s box of nature’s fury following the Sunday morning explosion unleashed the following:

• A series of mudflows raced down the two forks of the Toutle River, killing motorists, snapping a dozen or more highway bridges, sweeping away homes, cars and large logging equipment rigs. Many of the destroyed bridges were small spans across tributaries of the north and south forks of the Toutle, as well as over the Toutle forks.
• A searing explosion ripped a fan-shaped swath out of the forest on the northwest side of the peak, killing several persons by the shock of the blast or the heat. In some areas the trees were clipped neatly at about 20 feet above the ground; in other areas not even a stump remained. The swath was eight miles long and 15 miles wide.
• Ash, several feet deep in areas close to the peak, was pushed as far as 500 miles to the east where it "turned day into night." One of the hardest hit is the Yakima area, but the impact is widespread. It has closed airports, halted all but the more serious emergency services, triggered school closures, and become a major health concern. By mid-morning today the ash cloud was as far east as Montana and Colorado.

Through it all, Clark and Skamania counties and the Longview-Kelso area escaped virtually unscathed as winds blew the ash away from nearby populated areas south and west of the mountain.

As scientists reconstructed the chain of events, two major earthquakes struck the peak about one minute apart while most of the area’s residents were preparing Sunday breakfast. Those quakes are believed to have concentrated their force in the northside bulge of ice and rock that had been growing for several weeks at the rate of about five feet per day. That blister of rock parted without warning. The Goat Rocks formation reportedly moved westward and the pent-up force of the peak burst forth with the searing explosion that was to be likened to the force of an atomic bomb.

Geologist Dan Miller said that studies of the peak indicated such an explosion had not taken place in the past 32,000 years.

In addition to snapping the trees, the heat burned the paint on logging gear miles from the summit. Large blocks of ice and rock rained down on the area that had just been stripped of vegetation. Hot ash and cinders – several feet deep in a short time – came next, triggering forest fires. Hot gas flowed out of the hole in toxic levels.

Overhead, a giant gray cloud rose to 65,00 feet, creating its own weather, spawning a lightning storm that started even more fires.The total of fires from lightning strikes and hot cinders was more than 200, with some as large as 3,000 acres. But the ash then smothered most of the blazes.

The top of the once conical peak was sawed off at 8,400 feet, well below the old elevation of 9,677 feet above sea level. The crater, which was once 1,700 feet wide, now is described as being as much as one mile wide. The whole north side blister and all, is gone, leaving a horseshoe or scoop-like chute that funneled load after load of white-hot ash down the north side and into Spirit Lake.

One scientist said the ash, believed composed of shards of natural glass mixed with gases, possibly as hot as about 1,500 degrees, was rolling down the north slope toward Spirit Lake, site of a popular recreation area six miles north of St. Helens, is virtually gone. The once-majestic, picturesque lake is said to be a cauldron of logs, and boiling mud and water heated by repeated ash flows. There has been no word of feisty Harry R. Truman, 83, who had refused to leave his Mount St. Helens Lodge but a geologist said today there is only a "very slim" chance Truman survived. A helicopter pilot said there is no trace of the lodge, and the area is covered with 30 feet of ash.

The missing also include Reid Blackburn, 27, a photographer for The Columbian, and David Johnston, about 30 of Menlo Park, Calif. Johnston is a volcano expert for the U.S. Geological Survey. He and Blackburn were in camps about a mile apart about eight miles northwest of the mountain when it blew Sunday.

Flooding of the Toutle has pushed tens of thousands of logs, cleaned out of several Weyerhaeuser Co. sorting yards, downstream, wiping out steel and concrete bridges. A Weyerhaeuser official at corporate headquarters in Federal Way said "six to 12 Weyerhaeuser employees and families are missing. They may have gotten out safely but we are still looking.

Water was splashing over the closed Interstate 5 bridges at Castle Rock. Among the survivors were two seriously burned loggers – they hiked eight miles to get help.

Among the killed were two California sightseers, a family of three trying to drive to safety ahead of floodwaters, and a camper. In a volcano-related death, a pilot in Kittitas County, Wash., died when his plane hit power lines after the ash cloud turned the area to darkness. Maj. Bill Hewes, mission coordinator for the 304th Air Force Reserve Aerospace and Rescue Squadron from Portland, said he fears the death toll could go to 50.

One of Hewes’ pilots described one couple, found dead in their car 15 miles west of the peak near Camp Baker, as having been "fried" in the heat. "Trees and all the vegetation were laid out flat – singed, burned, steaming sizzling – a terrible looking thing."

Another pilot, Dwight E. Reber of Columbia Helicopters, risked his life three times during the afternoon in an effort to find Blackburn at the U.S. Geological Survey camp near Cold-water Creek.

Reber said, "It looks like the aftermath of an atomic explosion." He said paint of logging gear was scorched.

While rescue missions were being mounted on the mountain, and while officials worried about getting residents evacuated before a wall of thousands of people waited near the confluence of the Toutle and Cowlitz rivers. When a 1 _-mile long logjam reached that point, a number of people braved the logs to grab steelhead trout, which were flopping on the surface, suffocating in the muddy water.

Interstate 5 has been closed several times as officials watch mud brush the bottoms of the twin spans. The freeway was opened again at mid-morning today, at least temporarily. Just downstream is the Burlington Northern railroad bridge, also closed. When I-5 is closed, the detour over winding roads through Raymond, Wash., is a nightmare. Roads are also closed in Eastern Washington because of falling as has cut visibility to virtually zero. Closures include Interstate 90, the states main east-west route that links Seattle and Spokane via Ellensburg. The ash also has disabled countless vehicles by clogging air filters.

Of the 29 missing, four to 10 may have been in a "critical area" of extremely heavy ash fallout directly north of the peak.