NEWSFLASH

LAVA FLOWS FROM MAYON, ERUPTION IMMINENT

Quezon City, Feb. 23, 2000 - Scientists of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) warned yesterday that Mayon, one of the country’s most active volcanoes, is expected to erupt anytime.

Ed Laguerta, Albay resident volcanologist, said the lava dome on the crater floor continues to expand “due to instrusion of fresh magma.”

At 8 p.m. on Monday, “ashfall, molten rocks and lava” were seen flowing from the lava dome. The lava initially rolled down along Bonga Gully by a distance of a few hundred meters.

At 3 p.m. yesterday, the incandescent lava and pyroclastic fragments have flowed down between two and five kilometers from the slope of the summit.

Compared with previous measurements, the width of the lava dome has increased by about 12 meters and its height by about five meters. Laguerta said possible explosion activities can happen anytime.

Institute director Raymundo Punongbayan said the flow of magma up toward the crater is pushing lava out of the volcano, sending fragments, some bigger than a refrigerator, rolling five kilometers down a gully on the southeast side of the mountain at 80 kilometers per hour.

Early Tuesday, a portion of the summit crater wall collapsed, shooting brownish ash 400 meters (1,320 feet) high, prompting authorities to implement the forced evacuation of residents within the six-kilometer danger zone.

Police Supt. German Doria, Albay provincial director explained that the local police and the Provincial Disaster Management Office (PDMO) were compelled to use hammocks to ferry residents who spurned the evacuation order.

“No amount of explanation can convince them to evacuate. Our first priority is to protect their lives, secondary na lang yung sa properties nila. Those who rejected our advisory were carried by hammocks,” Doria said, adding: “This is the first time we used this method but, of course, within the bounds of law.”

There are now 46 evacuation centers currently housing more than 100 families from Sto. Domingo, Camalig, Daraga, Tobacco, Malilipot and Guinobatan.

The Phivolcs said Mayon Volcano’s most destructive eruption was in Feb. 1, 1814, killing 1,200 residents and burying an entire town in volcanic mudflows.