Tight watch up on Mayon

LEGAZPI CITY, PHilippines  – After it was predicted to have a hazardous eruption, Mayon volcano in Albay shook eight more times yesterday, from merely three the other day, while its crater glow and ground inflation remained both sustained as in the previous days, a situation that prompted volcanologists to closely watch the country’s most active volcano.

Ed Laguerta, resident volcanologist here of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), admitted though, that the slow, and sometimes fluctuating seismicity, and sustained crater glow and deformed ground, could not yet warrant the raising of Mayon’s alert level to 3.

“But we really need here a very close watch on Mayon, considering its highly unpredictable behavior. In fact, alert level 2 is where we need to be very alert because we cannot yet determine which eruption patterns this volcano will follow,” Laguerta told The STAR.

Alex Baloloy, another veteran watcher of Mayon here, said that in the past 24-hour monitoring period, Phivolcs instruments detected four low frequency volcanic earthquakes, or tremors caused by movement at the magma chamber deep down, and another four high frequency volcanic quakes, shakes that reflected falling of rocks at the upper chamber near the crater. 

“When these two types of earthquakes are detected simultaneously, we can say that there could be consistent movement of volcanic materials inside the volcano,” Baloloy said. He also said that they are considering the feedback being given to them by the residents at the foot of Mayon such as the rumblings that they occasionally hear now that the volcano is again acting up.       – Cet Dematera