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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

> The snowcapped peak of Mount Rainier, which towers 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles) above sea level in Washington state, has not produced a significant volcanic eruption in the past 1,000 years.

Is it possible that other nearby eruptions (St Helens) are releasing the pressure that would otherwise cause an eruption at Rainier?

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Not in the last 1000 years, no, but - they do mention they think there have been 11 Lahar events originating from Ranier that have impacted the seattle area, over the past 6000 years - one of which doesn’t even seem to be associated with a volcanic eruption.

At first I was like “why worry about Ranier when Hood is active” but - yeah the mother of all flash-floods is a horrifying prospect.

Different volcano, but back in the 50's the natural tephra damn on the crater lake of Mount Ruapehu (New Zealand) collapsed triggering a lahar, that ultimately took out the piers of rail bridge near Tangiwai minutes before a passenger train tragically attempted to cross the bridge, resulting in mass casualty's.

So certainly possible for non-expulsive activities to trigger a lahar and for consequences that sound like they are more from a disaster movie then real life to occur.

How hard would it be to keep the thing drained at all times?

You'll need to melt away the glaciers. Feasible? I am afraid not.

I don't think so, as they have separate magma chambers AFAICT, although Mt St Helens does look like it shares its magma chamber with other nearby volcanoes.

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