MANILA, Philippines — Amid the increased unrest of Kanlaon Volcano in Negros Islands, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) wants all residents still living within the four-kilometer radius permanent danger zone (PDZ) moved out in anticipation of a possible eruption.
Phivolcs director Teresito Bacolcol confirmed with The Manila Times during a Viber interview that the PDZ remained inhabited by some residents despite the standing policy that the area must be off-limits from the public all the time.
Saying it remains under the responsibility of the concerned local government units to make sure that the area must not be inhabited, Bacolcol said he could only sympathize with the affected residents who were forced to live in the area where they mostly depended on their livelihood.
“But during this time that the volcano has been showing restiveness, they must be told to get out of the PDZ immediately because we could not exactly predict when it would erupt,” the Phivolcs chief warned.
According to the Kanlaon Volcano Network (KVN), the volcano has recorded 337 volcanic earthquakes as of 12 midnight, September 11 and 9, 985 tons/day of sulfur dioxide (SO2) while emitting plumes that reached 1, 000 meters tall.
The current data was higher than the previous monitored parameters, Phivolcs said.
Bacolcol reiterated that they were not ruling out the possibility of another eruption over the Negros Islands volcano due to an increase in seismic activity.
He, however, hinted that if there would be another eruption, it would not be necessarily strong “although it is always possible.”
Residents near the volcano island said that they felt some of the volcano-tectonic tremors.
The volcano is currently under Alert Level 2 which means that there is an “unrest driven by shallow magmatic processes with increased chances of leading to explosive eruptions or even hazardous magmatic eruption from the summit crater.”
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