November 1 is normally a day when Filipino families gather at the graves of their relatives. In Albay province, about 1,500 people marked it in school buildings and covered courts instead, two days after Mayon Volcano blew a column of ash into the sky and forced them out of their homes.
The blast came just before noon on Friday, at 11:53 local time. State volcanologists at Phivolcs described it as a moderately explosive eruption, with a grey plume reaching about three kilometres, and moved the volcano from Alert Level 2 to Level 3, meaning a hazardous eruption has become more likely. Ash dusted several towns on the slopes; classes and office work across the province were suspended and children hurried home with handkerchiefs over their faces.
Provincial officials ordered everyone out of the six-kilometre permanent danger zone the same afternoon. By evening 2,041 residents from 746 households had left their villages, most of them in Tabaco, the rest in Camalig and Ligao. Some moved in with relatives elsewhere. By Saturday evening 420 families were still spread across seven evacuation sites.
Nobody can yet say when they will be allowed back. Oscar Robert Cristobal, who heads Albay’s disaster office, said keeping people safe came first, and police have sealed off the danger zone. Phivolcs has warned of lava flows and pyroclastic density currents, fast avalanches of hot gas and rock known locally as “uson”. Its instruments picked up 15 tremors linked to the volcano and 30 rock slides within a single day.
Social welfare teams are handing out food packs, with more than 2,000 extra packs heading to ash-hit towns, and the provincial health office has sent out 22,000 masks to protect against ash. Mayon, famous for its almost symmetrical cone, is the most active volcano in the Philippines.
