Batangas town restricts entry to Taal Volcano Island

LAKE FIND In this photo taken in September last year, a man catches fish near the once lush Taal Volcano Island facing Laurel town in Batangas province. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

With Taal Volcano still under abnormal status, no resident, including fish cage owners, from Talisay town in Batangas province can sail across the lake toward the volcano island without permission from authorities.

Lito Castro, chief of the Batangas Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said a police desk had been set up on Talisay’s lakeshore to serve as registration station for anyone who wanted to go to Taal Volcano Island, called “Pulo” by locals, to feed their fish stock.

“No one will be allowed to sail without registration. They are also required to log out upon their return in the afternoon. They now have limited activities,” Castro said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Tending fish cages

The registration process will ensure that no one will stay for extended periods on the island, which used to host a community of 8,000 people before the volcano erupted in January last year, he said.

Castro said the 63 people, all Talisay residents, who were preemptively evacuated by Coast Guard personnel and policemen from the island on Tuesday were staying in a shelter on the mainland.

Some who were able to return to the island left for the the mainland on Monday night after they were alerted by the local government, he said.

“Those evacuees were there on the island because they were maintaining their fish cages. They only stay there for two or three days, then they again return to the town proper,” Castro said.

But he said some island residents had started excavating their ash-buried houses.

According to Police Capt. Llewelyn Reyes, Talisay police chief, some of the residents who have been living in the evacuation centers for a year have since returned to Pulo “but not to permanently resettle.”

“They only stay for just a couple of days because their livelihoods are on the island. They found it hard to live the life of evacuees,” Reyes said.

Taal, the country’s second most active volcano, erupted last year, forcing hundreds of thousands of people within its 14-kilometer radius to flee their homes. It spewed volcanic ash and gas, accompanied by quakes that shook the island and nearby towns.

The government has declared Pulo a permanent danger zone and barred the return of residents who had lived off farming, fishing and tourism.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, in its bulletin on Wednesday, said at least 69 earthquakes, lasting for one to five minutes, had been recorded in Taal in the past 24 hours.

This was lower than the 98 quakes recorded a day earlier.