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Taal Volcano
AsiaSoutheast Asia

Philippines’ Taal Volcano eruption triggers dozens of quakes and mass evacuation

  • ‘People are panicking … the volcano can explode again anytime,’ mayor warns, as at least 25,000 people evacuated
  • Manila’s airport remains closed, with over 500 flights cancelled and no space for incoming flights until stranded planes fly out

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A youth steers a canoe while the volcano spews ash behind him. The Philippines is on alert for an ‘explosive eruption’ of the volcano south of Manila. Photo: AFP
Bloomberg
A mass evacuation is underway in the Philippines, where an erupting volcano 65km south of the capital has triggered some 75 earthquakes and spewed red-hot lava and “ballistic fragments”, forcing the nation’s financial markets to suspend trading and Manila airport to close, affecting 500 flights.
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A “hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours to days”, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said on Monday.

Nearly 25,000 people have been evacuated since late Sunday, with plans to move as many as 200,000 people. Officials ordered schools and government offices shut, and advised private businesses to do the same.

However, some residents refused to leave their homes and farms, officials said. “We have a problem, our people are panicking due to the volcano because they want to save their livelihood, their pigs and herds of cows,” Mayor Wilson Maralit of Balete said. “We’re trying to stop them from returning and warning that the volcano can explode again anytime and hit them.”

Maralit, whose town lies along the coastline of Taal Lake surrounding the erupting volcano, appealed for troops and additional police to be deployed to stop distraught residents from sneaking back to their high-risk coastal villages.

“You could not sleep any more, because every time you closed your eyes the house would shake,” restaurant owner Lia Monteverde said, recalling quakes striking minutes apart. “All of us didn’t sleep at all. We just prepared to leave.”

Weak lava fountaining, accompanied by thunder and flashes of lightning, indicated intense activity at the main crater of the Taal Volcano, the volcanology agency said.
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