Mayon’s lava fragments burning plantations

LEGAZPI CITY — Volcanologists here confirmed yesterday that incandescent fragments of the continuously advancing lava flows from the crater of Mt. Mayon have begun to burn hectares of grazing fields and coconut and vegetable plantations in and around the volcano.

These fragments of molten rock are also occasionally igniting wildfires that threaten the lives of people within Mayon’s six-kilometer radius permanent danger zone.

Albay Provincial Disaster Management Office (PDMO) chief Cedric Daep is confident, however, that no more human activities are conducted within these areas as far as their warning and monitoring systems have detected.

Ed Laguerta, resident volcanologist of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Atmospheric Services Administration (Phivolcs), said that fragments of the lava flows have begun to come faster and farther down the lava toe that has formed almost four kilometers from Mayon’s crater and two kilometers away from the six-kilometer "no man’s land" boundary.

"The super-heated lava fragments are now observed to burn grazing lands and plantations because they rolled way down the lava flow. These and the secondary explosions that trigger pyroclastic flow pose real danger to any life they hit," Laguerta said.

Daep, on the other hand, confirmed that some 495 families composed of 2,335 people have voluntarily left their homes in the barangays of Sta. Misericordia, Fidel Surtida, San Isidro, Lidong and San Fernando in Sto. Domingo town due to ashfall showering their homes.

The ashfall spewed from the volcano’s secondary explosions, as advancing lava pushed old deposits of pyroclastic material down the Mt. Mayon’s slopes.

Daep said the evacuees, whose houses were located nine to 10 kilometers from the crater, took refuge at the San Andres resettlement site in Sto. Domingo, one of the Albay towns earlier placed under a state of calamity.

He said he has explained to the evacuees that they may return to their homes at any time, since they are not within the permanent danger zone.

"Of course you cannot control their fear because of the secondary explosions and the ashfall hitting them," Daep said. "But they need to understand that there is no real danger yet."

Daep also said Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez has given the mayors of his province blanket authority to order evacuations if they deem that the situation already requires such action.

At least 7,000 people just outside the six-kilometer radius permanent danger zone will be immediately evacuated once alert level 4 is raised over the 2,474-meter high volcano which remained under level 3 yesterday.

Over the past 24 hours, lava continued to flow from volcano’s crater.

Most of the lava is making a slow advance through the Bonga Gully on the volcano’s southeast slope and had reached a distance of 3.6 aerial kilometers from the crater as of 6 a.m. yesterday.

During the past 24 hours, the lava flow has advanced 200 meters down Mt. Mayon’s slopes and has reached the 600-meter elevation mark.

Overall, the lava extrusion was relatively quiet and non-explosive. However, as hot lava and fragments of molten rock hit wet and vegetated ground at volcano’s upper Mabinit channel, they triggered localized small explosions and woodfires.

The recorded seismic activity is now dominated by ground vibrations caused by the slow progress of the lava. — Cet Dematera, Celso Amo