Mount Kanlaon erupted for about six minutes last night, producing a 5,000-metre plume and forcing the City of Canlaon’s government in Negros Oriental province to order the evacuation of residents of four barangays located inside the permanent danger zone, according to various Philippine media reports.
The Department of Science and Technology- Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (DOST-Phivolcs) has since 8 o’clock last night raised Kanlaon’s alert level from Alert Level 1 (abnormal) to Alert Level 2 (increasing unrest), which means “there is current unrest driven by shallow magmatic processes that could eventually lead to further explosive eruptions or even precede hazardous magmatic eruption”, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.
According to Phivolcs, the steam-driven or phreatic explosion occurred at Kanlaon’s summit vent at 6:51 pm yesterday.
Also known as Kanlaon Volcano, Mount Kanlaon is an active andesitic stratovolcano located in Negros Island, where it is also the highest mountain. With an elevation of 2,465 m, Kanlaon is also the highest peak in the Visayas and ranks as the 42nd highest peak of an island in the world.
Like other active volcanoes in the Philippines, it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometre long tectonic belt of volcanoes and earthquakes that surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean. (Gilbert Humphrey)
Photo: Nin Duletin
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