Mountain mayhem: Mount Kanlaon erupting, sending a towering ash plume and superhot streams of gas and debris hurtling down its western slopes. — MDRRMO via AFP
About 87,000 people were evacuated in a central Philippine region, a day after a volcano briefly erupted with a towering ash plume and superhot streams of gas and debris hurtling down its western slopes.
The latest eruption of Mount Kanlaon on Monday in central Negros island did not cause any immediate casualties, but the alert level was raised one level, indicating further and more explosive eruptions may occur.
Volcanic ash fell on a wide area, including Antique province, more than 200km across seawaters west of the volcano, obscuring visibility and posing health risks, Philippine chief volcanologist Teresito Bacolcol and other officials said by telephone.
At least six domestic flights and a flight bound for Singapore were cancelled and two local flights were diverted in the region on Monday and yesterday due to Kanlaon’s eruption, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.
Mass evacuations were being carried out urgently yesterday in towns and villages nearest the western and southern slopes of Kanlaon which were blanketed by its ash, including in La Castellana town in Negros Occidental where nearly 47,000 people have to be evacuated out of a 6km danger zone, the Office of Civil Defense said.
More than 6,000 have moved to evacuation centres aside from those who have temporarily transferred to the homes of relatives in La Castellana by yesterday morning, the town’s mayor, Rhumyla Mangilimutan said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said authorities are ready to provide support to large numbers of displaced villagers.
“We are ready to support the families who have been evacuated outside the 6km danger zone,” Marcos told reporters.
Government scientists are monitoring the air quality due to the risk of contamination from toxic volcanic gases that may require more people to be evacuated from areas affected by Monday’s eruption.
Disaster-response contingents are rapidly establishing evacuation centres and seeking supplies of face masks, food and hygiene packs ahead of the Christmas season, traditionally a peak time for holiday travel and family celebrations in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The Philippines’ Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the nearly four-minute eruption of Kanlaon volcano on Monday afternoon had caused a pyroclastic density current – a superhot stream of gas, ash, debris and rocks that can incinerate anything in its path.
The 2,435m volcano, one of the country’s 24 most active volcanoes, last erupted in June, sending hundreds of villagers to emergency shelters.
In 1996, three hikers were killed near the peak and several others were later rescued when Kanlaon erupted without warning, officials said. — AP
