Mayon ash chokes villages; power out

LEGAZPI CITY - Mayon volcano repeatedly erupted late into the evening yesterday, shrouding distant towns with ash, knocking out power lines and forcing thousands more villagers to flee their homes.

Three people have died due to the volcano's series of eruptions: two elderly women of a heart attack and a young man who committed suicide reportedly after he thought the voluminous ashfall signaled the end of the world.

Antonio Licup, manager of the National Power Corp. for the Bicol Region, said the ashfall damaged vital power lines, plunging Albay and Sorsogon into a blackout.

Licup said the insulator mechanisms of the 230 KV between Camalig and Guinobatan malfunctioned after volcanic ash fell on them yesterday.

The ash shower reached as far as Naga City in Camarines Sur and virtually turned day into night.

It was the volcano's biggest eruption in six days, triggering an avalanche of fiery rocks down its slopes.

The ashfall swamped Guinobatan, about 10 kilometers southwest of Mayon, with more than 2.5 centimeters of sulfurous deposits.

Visibility was so bad that people could not see anything half a block away and motorists had to turn on their headlights. Soon enough Guinobatan and Camalig towns were closed to traffic as visibility dropped to zero.

Meanwhile, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said Helen Obstaculo, 70, of Guinobatan town and Mariqueta Lorica, 59, of Daraga, died of heart attack, and 26-year-old Ronnel Luso, also of Guinobatan, ended his life when a column of ash shot into the air Monday.

"He thought it was the end of the world," said a resident when asked why the young man committed suicide.

Scientists said they expected more eruptions but could not say if the worst was yet to come.

"We're looking at this to continue for one or two weeks more," Raymundo Punongbayan, chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said in a radio interview.

"In general, what is happening is not life-threatening because we have removed the people from the danger zone," he said.

A plume of volcanic ash shot seven kilometers into the air Monday as smoldering boulders flew skyward and lava gushed from Mayon's glowing center.

Phivolcs reminded aircraft pilots to avoid the western and southwestern sectors of the volcano during eruptions, even as the Air Transportation Office closed the Legazpi airport yesterday.

In the streets and houses, residents moved about with their faces covered with handkerchiefs, pieces of cloth and paper masks to protect themselves.

Pyroclastic flows, on the other hand, were reported in Buang, Tabaco town, which is within the six-kilometer permanent danger zone.

Trees, also smothered with ash, have turned gray.

"This is terrible ... This is going to be terrible for the children," Guinobatan Mayor Juan Rivera told Reuters.

The ashfall raised health concerns, especially in overcrowded evacuation centers.

At least 15 people, most of them children, were downed by asthma as volcanic ash continued to blanket several towns in the second and third districts of Albay.

Rivera said 90 percent of Guinobatan had been covered with more than an inch of volcanic ash, and that he had asked for help from the provincial disaster office.

"We are asking for doctors and medicine to treat patients housed in the town's hospitals and clinics," he said.

Kagawad Romulo Leona of Barangay Masarawag in Guinobatan told The STAR that "it was the worse eruption" he had experienced with Mayon volcano.

Diane Aguilar, 29, health officer in charge, said five evacuees were immediately brought by ambulance to the health center due to sudden asthma attack, including two elderly who complained of difficulty breathing.

"Whom I fear (for) are the thousands of children in the evacuation center who have no ash mask," she said. To protect themselves from the ashfall, she said, evacuees cover themselves with blankets while they sleep.

Schools, tents and other government buildings around Mayon were holding nearly 48,000 people as of Saturday night, even though just 32,000 had been asked to move because of the threats of lava flows, rocks and poisonous gas.

Authorities said the number of evacuees could swell to 60,000 and overwhelm meager food supplies.

Experts appealed on radio for people not to flee because of ashfall, saying this could reach them in evacuation centers anyway.

Cedric Daep, a provincial disaster management officer, warned relief supplies would only last a month, although volcanologists have projected two months of dangerous volcanic activity.

He said ash masks continue to be distributed to residents of the affected towns.

Veronica Madulid, provincial health officer II, said cases of acute respiratory infection had dropped to 90 from 107 cases, while coughs and colds increased from 165 to 189.

She added that three mothers gave birth at the evacuation centers in Sto. Domingo, Malilipot town, and in Ligao.

The US government will send a joint military-civilian team to the area today to assess the ongoing relief operations, US ambassador Thomas Hubbard said yesterday.

The team will coordinate with the National Disaster Coordinating Council chaired by Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado.

More than 48,300 people living on Mayon's slopes have fled to evacuation centers here and nearby towns since the eruption began Feb. 24.

Government volcanologists said maximum alert level 5 was maintained around Mayon because of an extremely likely recurrence of pyroclastic flows.

Phivolcs stressed that strict compliance with the six-kilometer radius permanent danger zone --extending to eight kilometers in the southeast sector --should be observed.