Mayon’s alert lowered; 15,000 families decamp

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines — Citing a “general decline in unrest,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) lowered Mayon Volcano’s alert level to 3 yesterday.

The Albay provincial government also ordered around 15,000 families staying in evacuation centers to return to their homes. The families are residing within the volcano’s eight-kilometer extended danger zone.

Cedric Daep, chief of the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office, said evacuees from Ligao and Tabaco cities as well as Sto. Domingo were the first to decamp.

“There are activities for the evacuees…before they can leave...They have to clean the rooms they occupied for several weeks. They will be given additional relief items that they can bring home aside from those they have accumulated in the past days,” Daep told The STAR.

Phivolcs said a decline in the intensity and frequency of degassing, lava fountaining and seismic activity in the past days suggest a gradual depletion of eruptible magma.

However, Phivolcs said lowering the alert level should not be interpreted to mean that the volcano’s unrest had ceased.

“The volcano can be expected to continue generating volcanic earthquakes, magmatic gas output and weak surface processes such as sporadic degassing and lava effusion events, steam-driven explosions, rockfall and pyroclastic density currents while shallow remnant magma rests within the edifice,” it said.

Not yet normal

“They should not…think that Mayon is normal. Not yet. It still under Alert Level 3 or merely with decreased tendency toward hazardous eruption,” Daep said.

Phivolcs reminded the public not to enter the seven-kilometer extended danger zone, which includes several barangays in Anoling, Camalig, Sta. Misericordia and Sto. Domingo towns.

At least 337 families or 1,552 residents of Barangay Miisi in Daraga; 378 families or 1,693 persons from Anoling, Camalig; 568 families or 2,211 persons from Mariroc, Comon, Magapo, Oson, Buang and Buhian in Tabaco; 1,303 families or 5,067 persons from Canaway, Calbayog and San Roque in Malilipot, and 2,665 families or 10,833 from Muladbucad Grande in Guinobatan were advised to stay in evacuation centers until Phivolcs lowers the alert level to 2.

Phivolcs said Alert Level 4 would be raised again if there is an uptrend in monitoring parameters and lowered if the downtrend would continue.

Only four volcanic earthquakes and 44 rockfalls were recorded in the past 24 hours.– With Helen Flores