LEGAZPI CITY – The number of evacuees from Juban town in Sorsogon province rose to 145 families or 469 persons on Sunday afternoon amid the unrest of Mount Bulusan.
Arian Aguallo, information officer of the municipal disaster risk reduction and management office, said these residents from Barangay (village) Puting Sapa were evacuated at Juban Evacuation Center, the town’s gymnasium and Tughan Evacuation Center.
Most of them were evacuated on Friday, June 10, after the local government ordered pre-emptive evacuation.
In a press briefing, outgoing Sorsogon governor and Senator-elect Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero said 2,877 families or 11,374 persons were affected by the ashfall in Juban town.
He said that aside from Juban, ash fall also reached towns of Casiguran, Magallanes, Castilla, Pilar and Sorsogon City in Sorsogon province.
Some villages in Legazpi City in Albay also observed traces of ash.
In its 4:30 p.m. update, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the 18-minute eruption detected at 3:37 a.m. was “recorded as an explosion-type earthquake by seismic and infrasound instruments.”
Phivolcs said the explosion was felt at Intensity III by residents of Barangay Añog in Juban and at Intensity II in Barangay Inlagadian in Casiguran, all within 5-kilometer of the Bulusan summit.
During daybreak, multiple active vents at the summit were observed spewing ash and steam at 500-meter tall before it drifted to the northwest.
“In the morning, six vents – the major crater called Blackbird, three explosion pits on the summit, and the lateral vents on the northwest and north sides of the summit – were actively degassing short plumes which entrained ash until at least 9 in the morning,” Phivolcs said.
Alert level 1 status remains in effect over Bulusan.