Evacuations after Mayon Volcano activity increases
Philippines officials raised the alert level at Mayon Volcano in the northeastern province of Albay after activity increased, prompting the evacuation of nearly 3,000 villagers from the volcano’s permanent danger zone, authorities said Wednesday.
Authorities raised the 5-step alert around Mayon Volcano to level 3 on Tuesday. They said the change followed intermittent rockfalls, some described as large as cars, from the volcano’s peak crater in recent days, along with deadly pyroclastic flows.
The alert-level framework described level 5 as indicating that a major explosive eruption is underway, often involving violent ejections of ash and debris and widespread ashfall.
Volcanologist: ‘already an eruption, a quiet one’
Teresito Bacolcol, the country’s chief volcanologist, told The Associated Press that the situation already amounted to an eruption. “This is already an eruption, a quiet one, with lava accumulating up the peak and swelling the dome, which cracked in some parts and resulted in rockfalls, some as big as cars,” Bacolcol said.
He also said it was too early to determine whether Mayon’s restiveness would worsen into a major and violent eruption. Bacolcol said other key signs of unrest were absent, including a spike in volcanic earthquakes and high levels of sulfur dioxide emissions.
Evacuating people from the 6-kilometer danger radius
Troops, police and disaster-mitigation personnel helped evacuate more than 2,800 villagers from 729 households inside a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius from the volcano’s crater, Albay provincial officials said. Officials said the 6-kilometer zone is within the danger area they have long designated as a permanent danger zone marked by concrete warning signs.
Another 600 villagers living outside the permanent danger zone evacuated voluntarily to government-run emergency shelters, Claudio Yucot, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, said.
Officials said entry to the permanent danger zone in the volcano’s foothills is prohibited. However, the AP report said thousands of villagers have flouted the restrictions and maintained homes or farms on and off for generations, and that lucrative businesses such as sand and gravel quarrying and sightseeing tours have continued despite the ban.
Mayon’s track record and a church reminder
Mayon is 2,462 meters (8,007 feet) tall and is one of the Philippines’ top tourism draws because of its near-perfect cone shape. The AP report said it is also the most active of the country’s 24 restive volcanoes, with 54 eruptions since records began in 1616.
The report described the belfry of a 16th-century Franciscan stone church protruding from the ground in Albay as a symbol of Mayon’s past deadly eruptions. It said the belfry is all that is left of a baroque church that was buried by volcanic mudflow along with the town of Cagsawa in an 1814 eruption that killed about 1,200 people, including many who sought refuge in the church, roughly 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the volcano.
Risk for communities across the Philippines
The AP report said the thousands of people living within Mayon’s danger zone reflect a broader pattern in the Philippines, where impoverished communities often reside in hazardous areas near active volcanoes, on landslide-prone slopes, along vulnerable coastlines, atop earthquake fault lines, and in low-lying villages vulnerable to flash floods.
It said the country lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of fault lines along the Pacific Ocean basin often hit by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The AP report added that each year about 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippines.