One of the country’s most active volcanoes fired a dark column of ash thousands of metres into the sky in a “moderately explosive eruption” that lasted nearly six minutes, the state seismology office said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage around Mount Mayon yesterday. However, the country’s volcano institute raised the alert level from 2 to 3 on its five-point scale and called for evacuations within a 6km radius of the crater.
The 3,000m ash column gradually drifted southwest onto nearby population centres, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a bulletin.
“Mayon is in a new phase of magmatic eruption, with increased chances of lava flows and hazardous PDCs (pyroclastic density currents) ... affecting the upper to middle slopes of the volcano in the immediate days to weeks,” it said.
It urged local officials to evacuate areas near the crater over the risk of PDCs, lava flows and rockfalls, and advised aircraft to steer clear of the mountain.
At 2,462m, Mayon is one of three Philippine volcanoes to have shown heightened activity this year, although none has had a major eruption. — AFP
