Thousands flee as volcano stirs eruption fears
LEGAZPI, Philippines — Glowing red lava rolled down the slopes of a Philippine volcano Tuesday morning as authorities maintained a warning of a possible hazardous eruption.
The lava was quietly flowing in some places, but at times Mount Mayon was erupting like a fountain, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. Lava had advanced more than a mile from the crater, and ash reached up more than a mile and fell on nearby communities.
Several small pyroclastic flows were generated by fragments in the lava streams and not by an explosion from the crater vent, like occurred with Mount Pinatubo, said Renato Solidum, who heads the volcano institute. Pyroclastic flows are superheated gas and volcanic debris that can race down slopes and incinerate everything in their path, and are feared in a major eruption.
The institute increased the alert level for Mount Mayon late Sunday to three on a scale of five, indicating an increased prospect of a hazardous eruption “within weeks or even days.”
Nearly 15,000 people have fled the danger zone, within about 4 miles of Mayon, and the institute strongly advised people not to re-enter the area.
“There are some who still resist, but if we reach alert level four, we’ll really be obligated to resort to forced evacuation,” said Cedric Daep, an Albay emergency official. Level four signifies the volcano could erupt violently within days.
Mayon lies in Albay province about 210 miles southeast of Manila. Three steam-explosions since Saturday have spewed ash into nearby villages and may have breached solidified lava plugging the crater and caused lava to start gushing out, Solidum said.
With its near-perfect cone, Mayon is popular with climbers and tourists but has erupted about 50 times in the past 500 years, sometimes violently. In 2013, an ash eruption killed five climbers who had ventured near the summit despite warnings of possible danger.