LEGAZPI City, Albay (ENS) — The Southern Luzon Command is preparing to send in more soldiers as reinforcement in Albay province to help the members of the 901st Infantry brigade of the Philippine Army in keeping watch around the six to seven kilometer danger zone of Mt. Mayon.
Because evacuees kept on returning to their homes inside the danger zone, the Albay provincial government was forced to seek the help of the SOLCOM to guard the area around the volcano, particularly the seven to eight extended danger zone where a 24-hour curfew is being implemented.
SOLCOM chief Major General Ricardo Visaya said that in consideration of the needs of the evacuees, they will give them a chance to retrieve needed belongings and other items which they left in their homes near Mt. Mayon for a very limited time. But they will have to be accompanied by soldiers who will make sure that they will not stay long in their homes and return immediately to the evacuation centers.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, meanwhile, clarified that there is no shortage of relief goods in his province for the 50,000 evacuees housed in various shelters.
He said the P19 million calamity fund of the province has already been used up when they bought rice and other needs in the first two weeks of stay of the evacuees.
But he said this was augmented when help from various government agencies poured in, reaching as much as P100 million.
What they are asking the national government is funds which can be used to pay the salaries of more than 300 nurses who have been assigned in the evacuation centers, as well as to pay for the people assigned to take care of the various animals and livestock placed in animal evacuation centers.
Evacuees have reportedly been complaining about dirty toilets inside the evacuation site, forcing some of them to go back to their homes just to wash or clean themselves.
Director Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) advised Albay residents to heed the government’s warning to immediately vacate the danger zone.
He said the residents should not be fooled by the apparent calmness of the volcano, since it might erupt any time. In fact, the magma inside the volcano has reached its crater and pressure is also starting to build up inside the volcano.
Even the rains near the volcano’s crater can trigger phreatic explosions as what happened in 2009, and which later led to a major eruption.
He said this can be likened to the recent explosion of Mt. Ontake in Japan.
In the September update of Phivolcs, there had been only two volcanic quakes and four rockfall events in Mayon Volcano, while its sulfur dioxide emissions continue at 1,265 tons per day. (Eagle News Service as translated from the report of Albay’s ENS correspondent Jorge Hallare)