(CNN Philippines) — Disaster officials on Thursday (May 7) urged the residents near Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon province to evacuate, hours after the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) raised Alert Level 1 over the restive volcano.
”Currently, the alert has been raised — from Alert 0 to Alert Level 1. We are still putting in place the enforcement of the permanent danger zone to four kilometers and the communities there have already been warned that they have to be on standby. Should there be a need to raise the alert to Alert Level 2, they should be ready to vacate their homes,” said Mina Marasigan, spokesperson of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC).
The exact number of residents likely to be affected by Mt. Bulusan’s activity remains unaccounted as of posting time.
Mount Bulusan is about 70 km southeast of Mayon Volcano, which is in Albay, and about 250 km southeast of Manila.
”We are actually requesting the local folks not to venture near the volcano, that is foremost. And secondly, we have to monitor the spewing of ashes because it will result to ashfall later on which is dangerous to the health of community folks down there. So, it will be important for them to put masks on their faces so that they will not be able to inhale ash when it is present already. And of course to put their emergency kits ready so when there is a call for preemptive evacuation, they could easily leave their homes and go to the designated evacuation centers,” Marasigan said.
An Alert Level 1 indicates that hydrothermal processes may be underway beneath the volcano that may lead to more steam-driven eruptions.
Asked if they are ready to implement evacuation, Marasigan said: “Yes. The good thing is early on, we already received warning about this. So initially, we already warned the local councils and officials there. And should there be a need to (evacuate them), they can easily give out information and enforce evacuation, preventive evacuation.”
As of the moment, Marasigan said Mt. Bulusan has been spewing ashes and this is good. This means that the volcano is already releasing some of its energy rather than actually gathering energy together and an explosion may happen.
”So this is actually a good thing that it is spewing ashes slowly so that we are hoping that there won’t be a major eruption,” she noted.
”Because we are hoping that the small spewing of ashes, the small release of energy from the volcano can actually be helpful, it wouldn’t gather enough energy to have a major eruption,” she explained.
Marasigan, however, stressed the government is preparing for any eventuality.
The Philippines News Agency contributed to this report.
