Jojo Riñoza and Jeoffrey Maitem/Manila
The Philippines raised the alert level for one of its most active volcanoes on Thursday, warning of potentially explosive activity within days or weeks and urging evacuations of villages surrounding the mountain.
The state volcanology agency elevated its warning for Mayon to “alert level 3” on its scale of five, after detecting a growing number of rockfalls and repeated collapses of the summit dome.
The 2,462-meter mountain in central Albay province was showing increased chances of lava and hazardous pyroclastic flows, which could lead to “potential explosive activity within weeks or even days,” it said.
People living within a 6-kilometer radius of the danger zone were recommended to evacuate, while airplanes were told to avoid flying close to the summit.
With the monsoon season starting, there was concern that volcanic material from Mayon might endanger villages in its shadow, said Levy Lourdes Nuñez, chief of nearby Mabini village.
“We fear flooding with lahar,” Nuñez said. “We are afraid that the quarry operations on the slopes of the volcano could open the channels leading to our village.”
Miladee Azur, head of the Legazpi disaster risk reduction and management office, said evacuation orders were being assessed as risks changed.
“There is a threshold of rainfall volume that could generate lahar, and we have an alert level system based on rainfall volume, which informs the actions to be taken by the communities,” Azur said.
In January 2018, at least 40,000 people living around Mayon were forced to evacuate after it spewed a column of ash some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into the air, blanketing surrounding areas.
Five hikers, including three Germans who ignored warnings and strayed near its summit, were killed in 2013 when the volcano erupted.
Mayon’s most destructive eruption was in 1841, when an entire town was buried and 1,200 people killed.
The Philippines sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where continental plates collide causing seismic and volcanic activity.
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