Thousands of people were being evacuated from villages around a rumbling volcano near the Philippine capital Friday, but officials said they faced another dilemma of ensuring emergency shelters will not turn into epicenters of Covid-19 infections.
The alert was raised to three on a five-level scale after Taal Volcano blasted a dark gray plume into the sky Thursday. The five-minute steam- and gas-driven explosion was followed by four smaller emissions but the volcano was generally calm on Friday, volcanologists said.
Level three means “magma is near or at the surface, and activity could lead to hazardous eruption in weeks,” according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs). Level five means a life-threatening eruption is occurring that could endanger communities.
The agency asked people to stay away from a small island in a scenic lake where Taal sits and is considered a permanent danger zone along with a number of nearby lakeside villages in Batangas province south of Manila.
An eruption of Taal last year displaced hundreds of thousands of people and briefly closed Manila’s international airport. However, the volcano agency’s chief, Renato Solidum, said it was too early to know if the volcano’s current unrest will lead to a full-blown eruption.
The preemptive evacuations that began late Thursday involved residents in five high-risk villages.
The government continued on Friday to evacuate residents in affected and even high-risk areas around the Taal Volcano following its phreatomagmatic emission on Thursday.
The plume affected residents in 13 barangays in the towns of San Nicolas; Laurel; Agoncillo; Taal; Balete and Tanauan City where at least 1,392 people have been evacuated as of 5 a.m. on Friday.
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) spokesman Mark Timbal said 11 evacuation centers have been put up for the affected residents, citing the report of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Batangas.
“The Philippine Coast Guard is no longer allowing fishermen to sail into the lake as a precautionary measure,” Timbal also said, referring to the Taal Lake.
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief General Guillermo Eleazar ordered police units in Batangas to coordinate with local officials on how the minimum health safety protocols would be observed inside the evacuation centers.
Eleazar also ordered Calabarzon police director Brig. Gen. Eliseo Cruz to distribute face masks to residents if possible, not just for Covid-19 protection, but also against the hazardous emissions of the volcano.
The PNP chief tasked police units in Calabarzon to activate their respective Disaster Incident Management Task Groups as they may be tapped following the phreatic eruption of the restive volcano.
He also ordered the Police Regional Offices of Regions 3, 4B, 5 and the National Capital Region to prepare in case their assistance is needed soon.
Phivolcs has also advised residents of Taal Volcano Island and the high-risk barangays in the municipalities of Agoncillo and Laurel to evacuate due to possible hazards of pyroclastic density currents and volcanic tsunami.
Meanwhile, personnel and equipment of the military, initially from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division and the Philippine Air Force’s 730th Combat Group have been deployed in various affected municipalities around the Taal Volcano.
Local officials, however, faced an extra predicament of ensuring emergency shelters, usually school buildings, basketball gymnasiums and even Roman Catholic church grounds, would not become coronavirus hot spots. Displaced villagers were asked to wear face masks and were sheltered in tents set safely apart, requiring considerably more space than in pre-pandemic times.
Most evacuation camps also set up isolation areas in case anyone began showing Covid-19 symptoms.
“It’s doubly difficult now. Before, we just asked people to rush to the evacuation centers and squeeze themselves in as much as possible,” said disaster-response officer Junfrance de Villa of Agoncillo town, which sits across the lake from Taal Volcano island.
“Now, we have to keep a close eye on the numbers. We’re doing everything to avoid congestion,” De Villa told The Associated Press by telephone.
A nearby town safely away from the restive volcano could accommodate up to 12,000 displaced Agoncillo residents in pre-pandemic times but could only shelter half of that now. A laidback town of more than 40,000 people, Agoncillo has reported more than 170 Covid-19 cases but only about a dozen remain ill. At least 11 residents have died, he said.
The 1,020-foot Taal, one of the world’s smallest volcanoes, erupted in January last year, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and sending clouds of ash to Manila, about 65 kilometers to the north, where the main airport was temporarily shut down.
Heavy ashfall also buried an abandoned fishing community, which thrived for years in the shadow of Taal on an island in Taal Lake, and shut down a popular district of tourist inns, restaurants, spas and wedding venues.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A long-dormant volcano, Mount Pinatubo, blew its top north of Manila in 1991 in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing hundreds of people.
Sen. Joel Villanueva, for his part, said the government should brace for any impact brought about by eruption as the unrest could trigger several events “from a Naia [Ninoy Aquino International Airport] closure that will delay vaccine shipments, to factories in the country’s manufacturing belt suspending work.” He suggested that the government put on standby the P6.37-billion Quick Reaction Fund component of the so-called Calamity Fund in the 2021 national budget. That amount is distributed among 8 agencies in the Departments of Public Works and Highways, Education, Health, the Interior and Local Government, Agriculture, and Defense. AP with Rene Acosta and Butch Fernandez