LEGAZPI CITY — Secretary Francis Tolentino, Presidential Political Adviser and Mayon Crisis manager, created an “Anti-Lahar Intervention Task Group” during their meeting Tuesday with goverment regional directors and local government unit mayors at the conference room of Police Regional Office-Region 5 (PRO-5) inside Camp Gen. Simeon Ola in this city.
Tolentino, during the meeting, directed the regional directors of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the town mayors of Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga and Sto. Domingo to talk and make a plan for possible lahar intervention come rainy season.
“Initially, there were 13 barangays identified under the threat of lahar deposits. Four villages in Guinobatan, six villages in Camalig and three in Sto. Domingo town,” Tolentino said.
The group was tasked to prepare and develop disaster countermeasures plan against lahar flows at the onset of the rainy days.
According to Tolentino, the task group member agencies will conduct a study of how many of the population will be affected by lahar flow and make recommendations and plan for possible interventions.
Department of Social Welfare and Development Regional Director Arnel Garcia DSWD had earlier raised the lahar concern in order for them to prepare the needed relief packs in the event lahar flows occur.
Garcia said a large volume of loose volcanic materials were ejected and deposited at the slopes, gullies, and river channels of Mt. Mayon during its eruptions and there is danger of these flowing as lahar in the event of heavy and continuous rains.
Paul Alanis, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Science and research specialist, told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Tuesday that despite the deflation detected by Phivolcs instruments at the lower slopes of the volcano since February 20, bulging was still consistently observed at the volcano’s upper slopes near the crater summit.
Alanis said these signs clearly indicate that “magma is still rising based on what the instruments detected and recorded.”
He explained that the deflation happens when a vacuum occurs at the vent underneath the volcano edifice but when pressure builds up from gas or magma, this could again trigger a bulging at the edifice.
The volcano so far has emitted 90 million cubic meters of combined molten lava and other volcanic debris.
Alert Level 4 remains in effect over Mt. Mayon. The public is advised not to enter the 8-kilometer extended danger zone. (Mar Serrano and Jorge Hallare/PNA)
