Mass evacuation ordered in the Philippines after volcano erupts with 2 mile-high plumes of steam and ash

March 27, 2022

Mass evacuation ordered in the Philippines after volcano erupts with 2 mile-high plumes of steam and ash

Taal Volcano spews white steam and ash as seen from Balete, Batangas province, south of Manila, Philippines on Saturday March 26, 2022.
Reynante Olitan De Villa/AP

A volcano in The Philippines has erupted with plumes, forcing residents to evacuate, per Reuters.
The alert level for Taal volcano was raised from level two to level three, a seismology agency said.
Taal's recent activity could trigger a volcanic tsunami, the agency said.

Thousands of people were evacuated in The Philippines on Saturday after a volcano erupted with plumes of steam and ash that went nearly two miles in the sky, Reuters reported.

The threat level for Taal volcano, located in a lake south of the capital Manila, was raised from level two to level three on a scale of zero to five on Saturday morning after it spewed plumes that reached up to 9,800 feet, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said in a statement.

A total of 1,100 people, including fisherman in the lake, were evacuated by authorities, PHIVOLCS told Reuters.

PHIVOLCS said in the statement that it strongly advised the residents in five surrounding areas to evacuate "due to the possible hazards of pyroclastic density currents and volcanic tsunami should stronger eruptions subsequently occur."

—PHIVOLCS-DOST (@phivolcs_dost) March 26, 2022

The agency said in the statement that civil aviation authorities must tell pilots to avoid flying over the volcano because ash and fragments could be a danger to aircraft.

Wet ash from the plume, which smelt of sulfur, had fallen on the island of Taal volcano and on nearby shorelines, PHIVOLCS said in the statement.

PHIVOLCS didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment for more information about the evacuation.

It isn't the first time that Taal, one of the world's smallest volcanoes at 1,020 feet high, has created cause for concern.

In January 2020, Taal started spewing lava and releasing lots of ash and smoke into the air, forcing 16,700 people to evacuate and creating the potential for a volcanic tsunami.

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