More evacuees in Albay told to go home amid decrease in Mayon’s restiveness

FILE PHOTO: Villages in areas identified as high-risk for lahar from Mayon Volcano are advised to be ready, especially during the typhoon season as heavy and continuous rains may generate lahar flows along major channels. This image of Mayon was taken from Barangay Mabinit in Legazpi City on July 21, 2023. —MARK ALVIC ESPLANA

LEGAZPI CITY — Albay Governor Edcel Greco Lagman ordered on Thursday the decampment of the remaining families who were evacuated from their homes to temporary shelters due to unrest of the Mayon Volcano since June.

In an advisory, Lagman said families were allowed to go home due to the “decreasing signs of restiveness” based on the monitoring of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) and Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office (Apsemo).

“I acknowledge the need of evacuee families for normalcy even as they have been residing for more than three months in evacuation centers across the province,” Lagman said in the advisory.

Based on the data from Apsemo, about 2,441 families or 8,763 individuals were evacuated from the 6-kilometer radius permanent danger zones in the cities of Tabaco and Ligao, as well as in the towns of Camalig and Malilipot.

The local government ordered the mandatory evacuation of residents inside the permanent danger zone on June 8 after the Phivolcs raised alert level 3 over the volcano.

Thousands of families in the 7-8 kilometer radius of the volcano were also evacuated but sent home in the previous months.

Based on the 8 a.m. bulletin of Phivolcs, the said alert level is still maintained, which means there is a relatively high level of unrest, and a hazardous eruption within weeks or even days could still be possible.

In the last monitoring period, the agency recorded 30 volcanic earthquakes and 127 rockfall events.

The lava flow advanced to approximately 3.4 kilometers in Bonga gully in Legazpi City, 2.8 kilometers in Mi-isi gully in Daraga town, and 1.1 kilometers in Basud gully in Sto. Domingo.

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