Thousands more residents fled an erupting volcano in the Philippines, relief workers said on January 24, as foreign tourists flocked to the area to watch spectacular flaming lava and giant cauliflower clouds spurting from its crater. / AFP PHOTO / LINUS ESCANDOR II
(Eagle News) — The previous eight-kilometer danger zone around Mayon volcano has now been extended to nine kilometers because of the volcano’s continuous explosions and lava fountaining.
This was the decision of the Albay provincial government as Mayon spewed more ash, smoke and even lava that signaled that hazardous eruption is “imminent.”
More than 75,000 people have fled the danger areas surrounding Mayon, according to civil defense officials. Local officials are also thinking of “forced evacuation” around the eruption volcano.
Authorities said they will remove all holdouts, by force if necessary, to avoid casualties after tens of thousands of other residents fled to safety.
There have been no deaths in the 10 days since Mount Mayon began belching flaming lava, superheated rocks and ash.
However they said people have been leaving the shelters in daytime to tend to their farms and livestock inside the danger zone that now extends to nine kilometres (5.6 miles) from the crater.
Maria Evelyn Grollo, who runs a grade school-turned shelter for more than 4,000 people on the outskirts of Legazpi, said some are defying the city mayor’s order to stay away from their farms on Mayon’s lower slopes.
“In the mornings they go home, especially the men. But in the evenings they are here,” she said, adding they easily cross into the danger zone on their motorbikes.
“They just rush back to check their houses and their property,” Grollo told AFP.
Akim Berces, operations officer of the regional civil defense office in Legazpi city, told AFP the local authorities have sent police patrols to guard the abandoned farms and homes, so people should not go back.
There have been no reports of looting to justify the evacuees’ actions, he added.
A number of residents with homes just inside the declared danger zone were also refusing to leave, Berces said.
“There are some people who don’t want to leave but the local governments are forcing evacuations,” he said.
“The security (officials) are already talking about it, how they will ensure that it should be a no-man’s land.”
On Wednesday morning, January 24, Mayon volcano made ash explosions that reached three kilometers into the sky twice, first at 6:02 a.m. that lasted until 7 a.m., and again at 10:50 a.m., according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS).
Volcanologists said that from 06:02 AM Wednesday to 03:00 AM Thursday morning, six (6) episodes of intense but sporadic lava fountaining from the summit crater. The longest was at 6:02 Wednesday morning that lasted for 58 minutes.
The lava fountains reached 400 meters to 500 meters high and generated ash plumes that reached three kilometers to five kilometers above the crater.
“The events fed lava flows on the Mi-isi and Bonga Gullies, sprayed near-vent lava spatter, and fed incandescent rockfall on the summit area. Pyroclastic density currents or PDCs on gullies heading the Mi-isi, Lidong/Basud, and
Buyuan Channels were also observed. The runout of PDCs on the Buyuan Channel is now exceeding 5 kilometers from the summit crater,” Phivolcs said in its latest bulletin.
Phivolcs recorded 13 tremor events as of Thursday morning. Six of these corresponded to lava fountaining events.
Lava flows have advanced to three kilometers in Mi-isi, and one kilometer for the Buyuan lava flow from the summit crater.
Sulfur dioxide gas emission was measured at an average of 1252 tons per day on Wednesday, 24.January
A total of thirteen (13) tremor events, six (6) of which correspond to the lava fountaining events.
Volcanologists also recorded two (2) episodes of pyroclastic density current or PDC generation from lava collapse, and numerous rockfall events. Rockfall events were generated by the collapsing lava front and margins of the advancing lava flow on the Mi-isi Gully and by shedding from the summit dome onto the Bonga Gully.
(With a report from Agence France Presse)