Mount Mayon eruption latest: 9,000 people flee their homes as Philippines' most active volcano threatens to erupt within days

Glowing: Mount Mayon could erupt explosively within days
Earl Recamunda via AP
Eleanor Rose15 January 2018

More than 9,000 people have fled Philippines' most active volcano amid fears it could violently erupt.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level for Mount Mayon late Sunday to three on a scale of five, meaning a hazardous eruption could take place within weeks or even days.

Molten rocks and lava at Mayon's crater lit the night sky on Sunday in an red glow, sending thousands of residents into evacuation shelters.

Lava flowed from the crater and on Monday morning, ash clouds also began to gather, said Renato Solidum, head of the volcano institute.

Experts fear a major eruption could trigger pyroclastic flows - superheated gas and volcanic debris that race down the slopes at high speeds, incinerating or vaporising everything in their path.

Ash clouds gathered as a new lava dome formed (REUTERS)
Raymund Mark Nayve/via Reuters

Albay province emergency response official Cedric Daep said at least 9,000 people have been moved from high-risk areas in an ongoing evacuation.

"It's risky if people will be left behind," Mr Solidum said of villagers who stay to watch over their homes within the danger zone around the volcano.

The volcano lies in coconut-growing Albay province about 210 miles southeast of Manila.

Three steam-explosions since Saturday have spewed ash into nearby villages and caused lava to start flowing, Mr Solidum said.

A bulletin sent out on Sunday night said a hazardous eruption was possible within weeks or even days.

It said the glow in the crater meant a new lava dome was growing and that there was now danger of falling rocks, landslides or the collapse of the dome.

Meanwhile explosions of ash could drift towards nearby towns and cities, including Legazpi city, the provincial capital, about nine miles away.

With its near-perfect cone, Mayon is popular with climbers and tourists but has erupted about 50 times in the last 500 years, sometimes violently.

On May 7, 2013, an ash eruption killed five climbers, including three Germans, who had ventured near the summit despite warnings of possible danger.

Mayon's first recorded eruption was in 1616. The most destructive in 1814 killed 1,200 people and buried the town of Cagsawa in volcanic mud.

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