MANILA, 15 July 2006 — Officials yesterday told residents around Mount Mayon in the eastern Philippines to stay away from the “permanent danger zone” after the country’s most active volcano ejected ash.
Mayon’s mild eruption late on Thursday followed a series of earthquakes, residents and volcanologists said.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) raised alert level No. 3 around the volcano after observers saw “lava trickles” flowing down the slopes of the 2,474-meter (8,118-foot) volcano around 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) yesterday.
“A hazardous eruption is possible. We don’t know when, maybe within weeks,” said Phivolcs chief Renato Solidum. “It is a quiet eruption as of now.”
Volcanologists have been watching Bulusan Volcano in nearby Sorsogon province, just 60 kilometers to the south of Mayon, which also repeatedlu spewed ash from March to last month.
Solidum said scientists had expected lava to come out of Mayon’s crater after Thursday’s ash explosion and the many earthquakes recorded over the past two days. The government maintains a 6-kilometer “permanent danger zone” around the volcano’s crater, but many residents still live or farm the slopes. There was no immediate word of evacuation.
Mayon, located 360 kilometers southeast of Manila, last came to life in a series of eruptions in 2001, forcing the evacuation of about 50,000 people.
Mayon has erupted around 50 times over the past four centuries.
The most destructive eruption was in February 1841 when lava flows buried the town of Cagsaua in Albay province and killed 1,200 people.
