Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Officials fear extended emergency
More than 100,000 fled volcanic activity
AGONCILLO, Philippines — Philippine officials said Saturday they’re bracing for a long crisis whether the Taal volcano erupts more disastrously or simmers for weeks or months, as massive numbers of displaced villagers languish in emergency shelters.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said more than 900 villagers who fell ill have been treated, mostly for exposure to volcanic ash, in evacuation sites since the volcano began erupting in Batangas province near Manila, the capital, last weekend.
About 125,000 people fled from ash-blanketed villages and crammed into hundreds of emergency centers in Batangas alone, and many others took shelter in relatives’ homes, disaster-response officials said, appealing for masks, bottled water, portable toilets, food and sleeping mats.
“It’s really massive because you’re talking of more or less 100,000 evacuees in evacuation centers, so the infrastructure and services needed are really huge,” Duque said. “This is not going to be for the short term but for the medium if not long term.”
After belching a massive plume of ash and steam more than 9 miles into the sky when it rumbled back to life
Jan. 12, Taal has been spewing smaller emissions and shuddering with fewer earthquakes in recent days. But despite a perceived waning of its restiveness, continuing volcanic quakes, the drying of Taal’s crater lake and other signs indicate magma is moving beneath, said Renato Solidum, who heads the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
“We have this perception now that it’s waning versus underground subsurface activity, which indicates otherwise,” Solidum said at a news conference, adding that experts
“have not seen a definite trend that it’s weakening.”
The 1,020-foot-high Taal is one of the world’s smallest but the second-most restive of about two dozen active Philippine volcanoes. It has remained at alert level 4, the second-highest warning, indicating a hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours or days.
Duque said hundreds of villagers have been treated for respiratory infections, hypertension, diarrhea, skin lesions, flu and coughs in evacuation centers.