Filipino residents flee ash from Mayon volcano eruption

SANTO DOMINGO, Philippines (AP) — Truckloads of villagers fled communities near the erupting Philippine Mayon volcano Tuesday, traumatized by the sight of red-hot lava flowing from its crater and fearing evictions. sporadic ash.

Nearly 15,000 people have left mostly poor farming communities within a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius of the Mayón crater in the northwestern province of Albay in forced evacuations since the uptick in activity. volcanic last week. Albay’s governor widened the danger zone by one kilometer (more than half a mile) on Monday and asked thousands of residents to get ready to leave at any time.

But many chose to flee the expanded danger zone even before the mandatory evacuation order was issued.

“There is already lava and ash is falling,” said Fidela Banzuela, 61, from the Navy truck that she got into with her daughter, her grandchildren and other neighbors after leaving her home in the village of San Fernando, near Mayón. “If the volcano erupts, we wouldn’t see anything because it would be so dark.”

His daughter, Sarah Banzuela, fled with her two children, one of them with asthma, which she said could be made worse by volcanic ash that fell on the town over the weekend.

“Ash is already falling and, at night, there is red-hot lava coming from the volcano that seems to be coming towards us,” Banzuela, 22, told The Associated Press. She and her mother arrived at a school that had been converted into a evacuation, which was already packed with displaced villagers.

After days showing signs of activity such as rockfalls and a bright orange color in the crater visible at night, the volcano began spewing lava Sunday night, which slowly flowed down two ravines on its southeastern slope, volcanologists said. governmental.

An ash plume reached 100 meters (328 feet) at dawn Tuesday and was blew southeasterly toward some villages, said Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

El Mayón, 2,462 meters (8,077 feet) high, is one of the main tourist attractions in the country due to its picturesque conical shape, but it is the most active of the 24 known volcanoes in the archipelago. Its last violent eruption was in 2018, and it left tens of thousands of people displaced.

With the summit shrouded in passing clouds, Mayón appeared calm on Tuesday, but Bacolcol told the AP that lava was still slowly flowing down its slopes even though it couldn’t be easily seen because of the sun.

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Associated Press writer Aaron Favila contributed to this report.