Mt. Bulusan spews ash

Mt. Bulusan emitted ashes once again at 7:05 p.m. last night but the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said there was still no indication of an immediate major eruption.

Ted Sandoval, a science research specialist at the Phivolcs monitoring unit, noted this was the seventh ash explosion since the volcano became active again last March 21.

Phivolcs, however, could not determine the extent of the ash emission because the explosion happened at nighttime.

"We can’t see the summit because it was dark. But the volcano emitted ashes. There was no lava," Sandoval added.

The sulfur dioxide coming from the volcano is still too low to indicate an imminent eruption. (See related story on A-24) Aside from this, the volcano has not exhibited harmonic tremors, which are common in volcanoes that are about to erupt. — Sheila Crisostomo, Celso Amo