Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 8) — State seismologists downgraded Mayon Volcano’s status from Alert Level 3 to Alert Level 2 after they recorded a “general decline in unrest” since last month.
Alert Level 3 means there is a “decreased tendency towards hazardous eruption, while Alert Level 2 shows “moderate level of unrest,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a bulletin on Friday.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) also lowered the alert status of Bicol region’s emergency operations center from red to blue alert status, which means half of the agency’s personnel is “on standby for heightened monitoring on the matter.”
The OCD said it is looking into decamping some 52 families or around 195 people in Camalig town’s evacuation center following the development in the volcano’s activities. Camalig is among the areas surrounding Mayon.
“Rest assured that the agency would continue to provide all the assistance that local government units in the Bicol region would need during this time and until the Mayon Volcano’s activities finally cool down,” it added.
Phivolcs said based on its monitoring of the volcano’s day-to-day conditions, it has been showing improvements in the following parameters:
– Volcanic earthquakes, recorded rockfalls, and pyroclastic density currents—or a mixture of streams of hot rock fragments, gas, and ash—have decreased.
– Lessening incandescence of the summit crater and the 2023 lava flow deposits
– Pressurization of the Mayon edifice has become less intense
– Decreasing sulfur dioxide emissions
But Phivolcs still reminded the public that the lowering of the alert status “should not be interpreted to mean that the volcano’s unrest has ceased, considering that the edifice is still inflated and SO2 emission remains high relative to baseline levels.”
The agency also warned individuals against entering the six-kilometer-radius permanent danger zone.
The downgrading came six months after Phivolcs placed the alert status of Mayon at Level 3 on June 8.
The number of evacuees reached over 20,000, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) previously reported.
All in all, over 38,000 were affected by the volcano’s unrest, the NDRRMC said.
