Nevertheless, as the first premier of post-communist Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, put it twenty years later, on June 4, 2009, he wished western leaders would acknowledge the fact that the Berlin Wall would not have fallen if the the Poles had not defeated their communists on June 4 of 1989.
Mayon is a classic stratovolcano with a small central summit crater. The cone is considered the world's most perfectly formed volcano for its symmetry, which was formed through layers of lava flows and pyroclastic surges from past eruptions and erosion. The upper slopes of the basaltic-andesitic stratovolcano are steep, averaging 35â40 degrees.
Mayon, about 330 kilometres south-east of Manila, is the largest of the Philippines' 22 active volcanoes. It has erupted 48 times in recorded history. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed when lava flows buried the town of Cagsawa. In December 2009 tens of thousands of villagers were displaced when Mayon spewed ash and lava.