BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Kanlaon, Negros island’s active volcano, erupted anew yesterday, sending columns of ash into the air that was felt as far as Panay island, halting classes and government offices in some affected localities and forcing some residents on its southern slope to flee to temporary shelters.
As of daytime today, 10 December 2024, Capitol’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office reported five localities were affected – the neighboring city of Bago, La Carlota City, and the towns of La Castellana, Moises Padilla, and Pontevedra.
Capitol disaster chief Irene Bel Ploteña told DNX at least 1,100 families have already sought temporary shelters due to the explosion.
“It was a thick, grey cloud that came out of the volcano,” Miguel Angelo Yulo said as he viewed the explosion from Isabela, a town near the southeastern slope of Kanlaon, minutes after it erupted.
Yulo, staff chief of his father, Fifth District Rep. Dino Yulo, added there was no lava flow yet as of yesterday afternoon.
La Castellana information officer Remuel Lajo, on the other hand, reported evacuations as early as an hour after the eruption.
The volcano’s last major eruption was in August 1993 and another in the same month three years later killed three trekkers, one a British national.
Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson and some mayors were not in the province during the eruption, attending the awarding rites for the Seal of Good Local Governance but have now returned.
Lacson was quoted in radio reports that the province still has around P100 million in calamity funds as he confirmed that Capitol is mulling putting a calamity declaration.
