LEGAZPI CITY - Government scientists announced yesterday that Mayon volcano has stopped erupting but warned residents not to return to areas declared unsafe because Mayon could still roar back to life.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) lowered Mayon's alert level from five to four and reduced the eight-kilometer expanded danger zone around it following a week-long downtrend in its activity as of yesterday.
Phivolcs said it will issue a warning should there be a change in prevailing trends like the acceleration of seismicity, ground deformation and increase in sulfur dioxide emission.
Data obtained during the past seven days suggest no renewed active magma intrusion towards the shallow levels of the volcanic cone, the agency added.
After hearing the Phivolcs announcement over the radio, hundreds of people in overcrowded emergency shelters flocked back to their homes carrying pots and pans, straw sleeping mats and plastic bags filled with food rations.
In Guinobatan town, which was hit hardest by Mayon's thick ashfalls, many impatient residents did not wait for Army trucks and began to walk home on roadsides still dusty with ash.
But more than 16,000 evacuees from the six-kilometer permanent danger zone had to remain in evacuation centers as Phivolcs maintained the seven-kilometer buffer zone at the southeast quadrant.
Yoly Guanzon of the provincial social welfare and development office said a total of 61,122 evacuees are still in 42 evacuation centers here.
Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, who heads the National Disaster Coordinating Council, said they would not allow hundreds of people to return to a six-kilometer danger zone around Mayon because of the threat of rockfalls and avalanches of lahar.
He said the government is building low-cost homes to keep the people off Mayon for good, although he admitted that it is a difficult task.
Mercado said poverty and being landless have forced people from the lowlands onto Mayon's fertile slopes, and they will keep returning unless they are given real opportunities elsewhere.
Cedric Daep, chief of the Provincial Disaster Management Office, said evacuees will be extended livelihood assistance, particularly those whose farms were damaged by volcanic debris.
Now that relief operations have slowed down, the rehabilitation phase should start, including resettlement, recovery and health concerns, he added.
Phivolcs said the new alert level does not mean Mayon's activity will eventually die down because there is still the possibility of another moderate volcanic eruption.
Residents of low-lying areas and those adjacent to riverbanks should be extra alert as these sites may be threatened by lahar and mudflows, the agency added.-