MANILA: One of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes fired a dark column of ash thousands of metres into the sky on Friday (Oct 30) in a “moderately explosive eruption” that lasted nearly six minutes, the state seismology office said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in towns and cities surrounding Mount Mayon, but the country’s volcano institute raised the alert level from 2 to 3 on its 0-5 scale and called for evacuations within 6km of the crater.
The 3,000m ash column gradually drifted southwest onto nearby population centres, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a bulletin.
“Mayon is in a new phase of magmatic eruption, with increased chances of lava flows and hazardous PDCs (pyroclastic density currents) … affecting the upper to middle slopes of the volcano in the immediate days to weeks,” it said.
It urged local officials to evacuate areas near the crater “due to the danger of PDCs, lava flows, rockfalls and other volcanic hazards”, with planes also advised to avoid flying close to the mountain.
The 2,462m Mayon, rising in a near-perfect cone about 330km southeast of Manila, is one of three Philippine volcanoes that have shown elevated levels of activity this year, though no major eruptions occurred.
