On Monday, lava began to stream from the crater of the Philippines’ most active volcano, leading officials to issue a warning to tens of thousands of villagers to be ready to escape if the relatively mild eruption escalates into a catastrophic and potentially life-threatening explosion.
Since the previous week, when the level of volcanic activity escalated, more than 13,000 people had been forced to leave their homes in the primarily impoverished farming towns located within a 6-kilometre radius of the crater of the Mayon volcano. But there are still unknown numbers of people living within the permanent danger zone below Mayon. This region has been off-limits to humans for a long time, but it is here that generations of people have lived and farmed since there is nowhere else for them to go.
Teresita Bacolcol, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, stated that the high-risk zone around Mayon may be increased if the eruption becomes more intense. The volcano started spewing lava on Sunday night. If this occurs, Bacolcol advised that residents of any increased danger zone should be ready to escape to designated emergency shelters.
Reporters from the Associated Press spent the evening of Sunday watching lava flow down the volcano’s southeastern valleys from a safe distance. People hurriedly walked out of restaurants and bars along a beachfront promenade in Legazpi, the seat of the northeastern Albay province and around 14 kilometres from Mayon. Many of them were photographing the volcano, a renowned tourist attraction noted for its gorgeous conical shape.
The resurgence of Mayon’s unrest has caused anxiety and brought forth additional pain.
Marilyn Miranda stated that she, her daughter, and her 75-year-old mother, who had recently suffered a stroke, evacuated their home in a village located within the danger zone in Guinobatan town on Thursday and sought shelter at a high school converted into an evacuation centre. The high school was extremely hot and humid.
According to what she stated, her nephew and other males in their impoverished rural neighbourhood come back to their house every day to watch after their farm animals and their homes so they don’t get broken into.
They were petrified when they saw the vivid red-orange lava streaks streaming down Mayon’s slope on Sunday night from the overcrowded evacuation centre where they were being held. Miranda, who was crying as she spoke to the AP, said, “We had this feeling that our end is near.”
Amelia Morales and her family have been hit with a string of misfortunes in recent days, and the latest eruption of Mayon was only one of them. Her husband passed away on Friday as a result of an aneurysm and other ailments, and she was forced to hold the wake for his funeral in a crowded emergency shelter in Guinobatan since she and her neighbours had been instructed to remain away from their hamlet near Mayon. Her husband died of an aneurysm and other illnesses.
“I need help to bury my husband because we don’t have any money left,” Morales, 63, said as she sat near the white wooden casket that contained her husband’s body in the corner of the evacuation centre. She was sitting under a flimsy open tent. “There is nothing else I can do but cry.”
The 8,077-foot volcano showed no signs of activity on Monday, possibly because the wisps of passing clouds frequently obscure its summit. The bright sunlight made it difficult for visitors to notice the molten lava flowing down the volcano’s slopes, according to Bacolcol. However, the lava was still pouring down the slopes.
On Thursday, the alert level for the volcano was raised to level three on a scale of five, indicating that the volcano was in a condition of extreme unrest and that a dangerous eruption might take place in a matter of weeks or days.
Bacolcol stated that the alert level will remain at three, but it may be lifted up higher if the eruption suddenly became dangerous. The lava from the volcano is currently flowing down from it in a gentle manner.
The highest degree of alert, level five, would indicate that a severe and life-threatening eruption is occurring near Mayon’s lush foothills, with ash plumes shooting into the sky and superheated pyroclastic streams endangering more villages.
There are now 24 active volcanoes in the Philippines, and Mayon is one of them. The most recent major eruption occurred in 2018, forcing thousands of people to flee from their houses. Mayon’s eruption in 1814 was so devastating that it supposedly caused the deaths of more than a thousand people and buried entire villages.
The archipelago is positioned on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” which is the rim of seismic faults where the majority of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions take place. Each year, the archipelago is hit by approximately 20 typhoons and tropical storms.
Mount Pinatubo, located north of Manila, saw one of the most catastrophic volcanic eruptions of the 20th century in 1991, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.
