Philippines’ Taal volcano shoots plume of steam, but alert level low
THE PHILIPPINES’ Taal Volcano near the capital region erupted on Wednesday, spewing a plume of steam that was more than 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) high, the country’s seismology agency said.
Taal, located about 70 km south of Manila, is one of the world’s smallest active volcanoes, and some of its previous eruptions had affected the capital and air travel.
The agency’s chief Teresito Bacolcol described the eruption as phreatomagmatic, where magma interacts with water and produces a plume of steam.
The volcano sits inside a large lake near the town of Tagaytay in Cavite province.
“This phreatomagmatic eruption was limited at the volcano island,” Mr. Bacolcol said by phone. “We’re looking whether there’s ashfall in the eastern side, but there’s no evacuation yet.”
He added that the alert level remained at the lowest on the scale and there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Despite standing at only 311 meters (1,020-feet), it can be deadly and an eruption in 1911 killed more than 1,300 people.
In July 2021, thousands of people were evacuated after it spewed a kilometer-high plume of gas and steam.
A year earlier, Taal volcano shot a column of ash and steam as high as 15 km into the sky, forcing more than 100,000 people to abandon their homes and triggered widespread disruption in the capital.
The Philippines lies in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes strike. I also lies along the typhoon belt in the Pacific and experiences about 20 storms each year. — Reuters
