Mayon in a lull; food packs for evacuees spoiled

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines—-The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) expects another lull from the volcano after the short lava flow observed on Sunday stopped.

“The volcano is building up pressure again after the lava flow has stopped,” said Eduardo Laguerta, Phivolcs resident volcanologist here.

He said the magma that came out depressurized the remaining magma inside, which means that the “pressure of the volcano now is not enough to again push the magma to the upper portion.”

Laguerta said the magma was moving up slowly, thus spewing only a little amount on Sunday.

On Sunday, Phivolcs observed a short and viscous or sticky lava flow, 350 meters in length, cascading from the summit on the eastern side of Bonga Gully.

Laguerta said it was not yet time to raise the alert level as the volcano remained inflated or swollen, which means a big volume of magma is still moving up the crater to indicate imminent eruption.

Phivolcs said they recorded two volcanic earthquakes and four rockfall events on Tuesday morning.

The alert level on Mayon was raised to 3 on Sept. 15, prompting the evacuation of 12,712 families, or 54,693 persons, from the towns of Guinobatan, Malilipot, Camalig, Daraga, Sto Domingo and the cities of Ligao and Tabaco.

As this developed, spoiled food packs were found in the batch of food packs delivered to Albay on Sunday by a caravan from the national government.

Arnel Garcia, director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development-Bicol, however, said inspection showed “only 0.1 percent” of the 22,450 packs delivered on Sunday were spoiled.

He said 32 family food packs worth P3,000 were spoiled.

The spoiled food packs, consisting of sardines, corned beef and rice, were discovered by camp managers in temporary shelters in Camalig, Daraga and Ligao.

He said the food spoiled during the weekend delivery.

“All of these were released but we assure that we will replace these,” he said.

Each food pack consists of six kilos of rice, 4 cans of sardines, 4 cans of corned beef, 6 packs of noodles and cereal drinks.

Mayor Herbie Aguas of Sto. Domingo said 17 food packs about to be distributed were found unfit for human consumption as checked by their rural health physician.