Philippines widens evacuation area as lava spreads around restive volcano
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The crater of the Mayon volcano began glowing on the evening of Jan 14, 2017.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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Experts at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) advised residents to use a damp cloth over their mouths and stay indoors to avoid inhaling sulphur dioxide gas.
"If you breathe, you will feel like coughing and clearing your throat. It also stings and is painful in the eyes," Bert Recamunda, a 55-year-old engineer and Mayon watcher, told AFP after visiting Camalig town near the volcano.
Classes were suspended in parts of Albay province where Mayon is at, and some schools were used as evacuation centres.
"I am afraid. The volcano rumbles like a rolling thunder," said Nerry Briones, 40, from a classroom in Camalig town, where she and her three children have stayed for the past two nights along with other evacuees.
Mayon, a near-perfect cone that draws thousands of tourists, even during minor eruptions, rises 2,460m above a largely agricultural region some 330km south-west of Manila.
It is considered the nation's most active volcano.
In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed when lava flows buried the town of Cagsawa.
An explosion in August 2006 did not directly kill anyone, but four months later a typhoon unleashed an avalanche of volcanic mud from Mayon's slopes that claimed 1,000 lives.
In May 2013, four foreign tourists and their local tour guide were killed when Mayon erupted.
