By Charles Nwoke
Countless people living close to a Philippine volcano have taken shelter in evacuation camps as authorities on Sunday warned of health dangers from ash and poisonous gases spewing from the rumbling crater.
Seismology investigators said they had noted about one volcanic tremor in the past 24 hours and red-hot stones were falling from Mount Mayon in the central region of Albay.
Over 12,800 people have so far been moved to evacuation centres, the Philippine civil defence office said, most from agrarian villages at or near the foot of the volcano.
“There is a concomitant health risk while being close to the eruption because of inhaling sulphur dioxide gas or the particulate matter of ashfalls,” Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa told a press conference on Sunday.
Mayon, about 330 kilometres (205 miles) southeast of the capital of the Philippines, Manila, is considered one of the most erratic of the country’s 24 heated volcanoes.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said rocks were falling from a disintegrating lava dome being pushed out of the crater by dissolved material below the earth.
The rocks were plunging on areas up to two kilometres away and sulphur dioxide smells had tripled on Saturday, state volcanologists stated.
A five-step awareness system for the volcano was raised from two to three on Thursday, with officials cautioning about apparent respiratory health challenges from inhaling vapours.
“With Albay in a state of calamity due to Mayon’s activity, we remind people to follow the recommendations and evacuation instructions of your local governments,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said Saturday.
Earthquakes and volcanic activity are prevalent in the Philippines due to their situation on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide.
Five years ago, Mayon ousted tens of thousands of people after
spewing millions of tonnes of ash, rocks and lava.
The country’s most powerful eruption in recent decades was the Pinatubo in 1991 which killed more than 800 residents.
That catastrophe produced an ash haze that toured thousands of kilometres.