Who’s afraid of majestic Mayon Volcano?

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File photo of an aerial view of the crater of Mt. Mayon, from facebook page of Gov. Salceda.

The long wait continues for that dreaded explosion of the beautiful, majestic Mayon volcano for 50 days or so now since Phivolcs raised Alert Level 3.

The evacuees are holed in less comfortable camping situation of their lives, on dole outs from the government and private sectors of relief food, services, etc., which may actually do not give much relief to almost 56,000 individuals.

The current restiveness of Mount Mayon is considered by a lady scientist of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) as the trickiest within a period of 50 years.

“It’s very tricky for us and anytime soon, the Mayon volcano could change because magma is there and pre-positioned already,” Ma. Antonia V. Bornas, chief of volcano monitoring and eruption prediction division,

So, the volcanologist said, they cannot bring down the alert level status of Mayon from level 3 to level 2 because the magma is there already and anytime soon, it will explode.

“Once the magma’s static pressure becomes stronger than the tihostastic pressure—meaning, magmatic pressure should overcome the lithostatic pressure or the confining pressure — this will lead to explosion,” senior resident volcanologist in Bicol Ed Laguerta said.

Unlike the typhoon or pregnant woman whose due date or landfall is easily predicted, the volcano eruption is like an earthquake that could not be determined as it may happen even without precursor, claimed the veteran volcanologist who has spent most of his time and career monitoring Mayon’s daily activities.

With this, Laguerta reiterated to the public to stay away from the six to 8-km extended danger zone to prevent untoward incident should Mayon explode.

He also asked the public to listen only to the authorities as to the advisory regarding the restive situation of Mayon as even without alert level the volcano could erupt without warning.

Earlier, Phivolcs said that only those living within Mayon’s six-kilometer permanent danger zone and the seven-kilometer extended danger zone of the southeast quadrant were recommended for evacuation.

But APSEMO evacuated the entire area within seven-kilometer zone, as well as the eight-kilometer buffer zone, for maximum safety but souds more like some break in the line of communication or interpretation by the agency concerned.

Hundreds of millions of pesos in budgetary allocations by different agencies are being spent and incurred already in the ongoing, tedious wait and watch process, only the transient tourists are unaffected.

Some evacuees are even rearing to go home now. So, who’s afraid of the majestic Mayon Volcano?

One facebooker posted in Gov. Salceda’s account: Aisa Arellano-Morada: Gov. Is it true that tent classrooms had been supplied with native mats or banig which will serve as temporary ceilings to lessen the heat inside the tents during sunny days. It has been a month and two weeks to be exact and yet there are no mats. What happened Gov?

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