PHIVOLCS: Another Taal Volcano eruption may happen ‘anytime soon’

An eruption similar to last week's could happen again at Taal Volcano "anytime soon," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said Sunday. 

In a 4 p.m. advisory, PHIVOLCS said Taal Volcano registered its highest ever recorded emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas with an average of 22,628 tonnes per day.

Since 12 a.m. there have also been 26 "strong and very shallow" low-frequency volcanic earthquakes "associated with magmatic degassing has been recorded beneath the eastern sector of Volcano Island," the advisory added.

"Some of these earthquakes were reportedly accompanied by rumbling and weakly felt by fish cage caretakers off the northeastern shorelines of Volcano Island," it said.

With this, PHIVOLCS warned that "an eruption similar to the 1 July 2021 event may occur anytime soon."

It can be recalled that on July 1m PHIVOLCS raised Alert Level 3 over Taal Volcano after the volcano erupted a short-lived 1 kilometer-high phreatomagmatic plume. 

Alert Level 3 remains over the volcano. State volcanologists, likewise, stressed that "high-risk" areas in Batangas such as Barangays Bilibinwang and Banyaga in the municipality of Agoncillo and Barangays Buso-buso, Gulod, and Bugaan East in Laurel "remain evacuated due to the possible hazards of pyroclastic density currents and volcanic tsunami should stronger eruptions subsequently occur."

Batangas government earlier said some 15,000 individuals have left their homes for evacuation centers. — Consuelo Marquez/BM, GMA News