A total of 100 buoy markers are being placed by the PCG Task Force Taal to mark the 7-kilometer radius declared as ‘danger zone’ along the vicinity waters off Taal Lake. PHOTO from PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD FACEBOOK
TALISAY, Batangas –– The Philippine Coast Guard laid out about a hundred floating buoys across Taal Lake on Wednesday to mark the seven-kilometer-circumference identified as a danger zone around the restive Taal Volcano.
Taal Volcano remained under Alert Level 3 even as it visibly showed fewer smoke plumes and ground activities, weeks following its phreatic eruption on Jan. 12.
Coast Guard commander for Southern Luzon Artemio Abu, in a phone interview from Batangas’ capital city, said several floating fish cages, especially in parts of Agoncillo and Laurel towns, fell inside the restricted area that authorities measured from the Taal volcano’s main crater and down the surrounding lake.
Abu said they would advise fish cage owners to pull the cages, commonly used to grow tilapia, out of the danger zone or farther from the volcano.
“But of course, it’s (people’s source of) livelihood and we understand the cages still contained fish stocks. There has to be some humanitarian consideration,” he said.
Residents in the affected towns on the mainland were allowed to return to their homes after the alert level was downgraded on Sunday, while fishing, a common livelihood source around the lake, resumed as long as people kept off the hazard area now marked with the bright orange buoys.
The volcano island remained off-limits.
Abu said Coast Guard patrol boats would continue to guard against residents, who kept on entering the volcano island, either to rescue surviving farm animals or check their fish cages.