Authorities in the Philippines have lowered the alert level of its second-most active volcano Taal to allow displaced people to return home.
The national disaster agency (NDA) said on Saturday that authorities were assessing the situation that whether “evacuees can be allowed to go home” in 145 villages around Taal Volcano in Batangas province, 66 kilometres south of Manila.
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Mark Timbal, NDA spokesman said that the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) Friday night lowered the alert at Taal to level 2 from level 3. He said that “magma extruding from the main crater could drive explosive eruption.”
Nearly 21,789 residents have been staying in evacuation centres or with their kith and kin since July 1 when Taal was placed under alert level 3 after it spewed a dark one-kilometre-high plume of volcanic gas and steam.
Nineteen other phreatomagmatic eruptions were also recorded until July 9, after which “there has been a cessation of eruptive activity at Taal Volcano,” said Phivolcs in its latest bulletin. It added that “ unrest since then has been characterized by renewed seismic activity, generally declining volcanic gas emission, very slight ground deformation and positive microgravity anomalies.”
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The Volcanology institute emphasized that “there was decreased unrest” and alert level 2 “should not be interpreted that unrest has ceased or that the threat of an eruption has disappeared.”
Last year in January over 376,000 people were displaced in the Taal eruption while 39 died due to illnesses caused at evacuation centres and during accidents caused by thick ashfall. (AW)
