Mayon volcano spews lava as evacuations picks up around Philippines island
Thousands of residents have been evacuated as the Mayon volcano spews ash and lava, in Santo Domingo, Albay province, Philippines, on Monday. Photo by Francis Malasig/EPA-EFE
June 12 (UPI) -- Thousands of people have been evacuated in the southeastern region of the Philippines' main island as the Mayon volcano started spews lava and sulfuric gas.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, of Phivolcs, named a nearly four-mile area around the volcano as a "danger zone," rocked by landslides and rockfalls.
Since officials raised the alert level to 3 last week nearly 13,000 people, including 88% of residents in the danger zone have been evacuated, the Philippine Provincial Information Office said.
Phivolcs said it has documented new lava activity from the Mount Mayon crater along with 21 weak volcanic earthquakes and 260 rockfalls in the Mayon Volcano Network. It said that hot, fast-moving flows of ash, hot gases and debris are rushing down volcanic slopes and predicted possible fall on the volcano's south side.
"Lava is being poured out from the vent," Phivolcs Director Teresito Bacolcol said. "It's slow-moving. It's what we call an effusive eruption. The magma shown here is low in gas content and it flows out of the volcano."
Philippines officials placed Albay province was placed under a state of calamity on Friday allowing the government to release response funds to support local residents in the area. Along with residents, authorities evacuated 10,000 farm animals, including cows, goats and pigs.
They were taken to feeding camps and shelters outside the danger zone.
In 2018, the last time the Mayon volcano erupted, thousands of villagers were displaced as they escaped the falling ash. The Philippines is part of the so-called "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific Ocean in which most earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.
Philippines’ Mayon Volcano spews lava down its slopes in gentle eruption putting thousands on alert
June 12, 2023
LEGAZPI (AP) — The Philippines’ most active volcano was gently spewing lava down its slopes on Monday, alerting tens of thousands of people they may have to quickly flee a violent and life-threatening explosion.
More than 12,600 people have left the mostly poor farming communities within a six-kilometre (3.7-mile) radius of Mayon Volcano’s crater in mandatory evacuations since volcanic activity increased last week. But thousands more remain within the permanent danger zone below Mayon, an area long declared off-limits to people but where generations have lived and farmed because they have nowhere else to go.
Mayon Volcano belches red-hot emissions down its slope as seen from Legazpi, Albay province, northeastern Philippines on June 11. PHOTO: AP
With the volcano beginning to expel lava on Sunday night, the high-risk zone around Mayon may be expanded should the eruption turn violent, said Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Bacolcol said if that happens, people in any expanded danger zone should be prepared to evacuate to emergency shelters.
“What we are seeing now is an effusive eruption,” Bacolcol told The Associated Press (AP). “We are looking at this on a day-to-day basis.”
From a distance, AP journalists watched lava flow down the volcano’s southeastern gullies for hours on Sunday night. People hurriedly stepped out of restaurants and bars in a seaside district of Legazpi, the capital of northeastern Albay province about 14 kilometres (8.5 miles) from Mayon, many of them snapping pictures of the volcano that’s a popular tourist draw known for its picturesque conical shape.
Albay was placed under a state of emergency on Friday to allow for quicker distribution of any disaster relief funds in the event of a major eruption.
The volcano had been raised to alert level three on a five-step system on Thursday, warning that the volcano was in a state of high unrest and a hazardous eruption is possible in weeks or days.
With lava flowing down from the volcano gently, Bacolcol said the alert level would stay at three but it could be moved up higher if the eruption turns perilous.
The highest alert, level five, would mean a violent and life-threatening eruption is underway with ash plumes shooting into the sky and superheated pyroclastic streams endangering more communities at Mayon’s lush foothills.
Mayon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the Philippines. It last erupted violently in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of villagers. In 1814, Mayon’s eruption buried entire villages and reportedly left more than 1,000 people dead.
Many of Albay’s people, however, have accepted the volcano’s sporadic fury as part of their lives.
On Sunday morning, throngs of people jogged, biked and walked their dogs in a seaside promenade in Legazpi. The 2,462-metre (8,077-foot) volcano lay hidden in thick clouds at a distance.
Some locals have grown wealthy from the tourism industry that has sprung from Mayon or the gravel, sand and ornamental rocks and boulders found around the volcano in abundance.
Inside the permanent danger zone, authorities and villagers on Sunday were moving cows and water buffaloes from the high-risk farms to temporary grazing areas a safe distance away.
“It’s not only people that should be brought to safety but their farm animals, too,” Albay provincial veterinarian Manny Victorino told AP. He said authorities were taking steps to avoid a deeper economic impact should the volcano erupt.
They gave deworming medicine and vitamins and punched identifying tags onto the ears of several cows and buffaloes for better monitoring.
The cattle evacuations underscore how wide the potential threats are from natural disasters in the Philippines.
The archipelago is lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms a year and is located on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the rim of seismic faults where most of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.
In 1991, Mount Pinatubo north of Manila blew its top in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing hundreds.
Italy's Campi Flegrei volcano is at risk of eruption, researchers say
Researchers at Italy's National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology say Campi Flegrei volcano, in southern Italy, is at risk of experiencing an eruption, like the one shown here at Mauna Loa in Hawaii. File Photo by Bruce Omori/Paradise Helicopters/EPA-EFE
June 9 (UPI) -- The Campi Flegrei volcano in southern Italy is at risk of erupting, researchers at Italy's National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology and University College London said in a new study published in the Communications Earth and Environment journal from Nature.
The ground beneath the coastal town of Pozzuoli has been rising about 4 inches a year for the past decade, investigators reported Friday. They also noted a series of persistent small earthquakes, including 600 recorded in April.
About 360,000 people live on the roof of the volcano, which resembles a gentle depression and is not an obvious mountain. It is located about 9 miles west of Naples, Italy, and is partially submerged beneath the Bay of Pozzuoli.
Researchers at University College London created a simulation "to interpret the patterns of earthquakes and ground uplift, and concluded that parts of the volcano had been stretched nearly to a breaking point."
"Our new study confirms that Campi Flegrei is moving closer to rupture," study lead author Christopher Kilburn of University College London Earth Sciences said in a news release.
"However, this does not mean an eruption is guaranteed. The rupture may open a crack through the crust, but the magma still needs to be pushing up at the right location for an eruption to occur," Kilburn continued.
"This was the first time we have applied our model, which is based on the physics of how rocks break, in real-time to any volcano," Kilburn said, "we will now have to adjust our procedures for estimating the chances of new routes being opened for magma and gas to reach the surface."
The volcano hasn't erupted since 1538 but has experienced increased geological activity in recent decades.
Researchers first used UCL's model in 2017 and say the Campi Flegrei volcano has experienced an increasing number of small earthquakes in line with the model's predictions.
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