(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The number of Filipinos fleeing from the erupting Mayon volcano to safe zones has swelled to nearly 90,000, officials said yesterday, worsening a sanitation crisis in the already stretched relief camps.
President Rodrigo Duterte flew to the central city of Legazpi yesterday to assess the disaster zone, some two weeks after the country's most active volcano began belching spectacular but potentially lethal ash columns, lava and rocks.
Authorities have thrown a nine kilometre no-go zone around the mountain with the vast majority of those living in its shadow now safely outside that radius.
But sanitary conditions in the safe-zones are far from ideal.
Al Francis Bichara, the governor of Albay province, said authorities expect the evacuees will need to stay at the camps for at least a month.
But he warned limited local government resources were being stretched, citing the lack of toilets at the shelters, where he said an average of 200 people now took turns using one.
'We lack 1,222 toilets, he said, adding the ideal was one toilet for every 50 evacuee (1,800 total).
After being briefed by officials Duterte said he was worried about the lack of toilets.
'One worry really is the sanitation, he told the officials, adding his government would try to send as many portable cabins as possible in the coming days.
Officials said they were confident the no-go zone radius was large enough to keep people safe from even a large explosive eruption.
'Even if that happens we think the people are already safe, state volcanology institute chief Renato Solidum said.
He stressed the eruption was not over despite a relatively quiet weekend, estimating some '50mn cubic metres more debris had the potential to be ejected from the crater in the coming days and weeks.
If cooling lava blocks the crater gas pressure would build up and cause the magma inside to explode, producing eruption columns far taller than the five-kilometres-tall clouds seen in previous days, he said.
Officials have also said farmers are also going back to the danger zone to tend to their crops and livestock, putting them within range of white-hot volcanic debris shooting down Mayon's flanks at great speed.
Solidum said local authorities were also making sure loose volcanic debris deposited on Mayon's flanks would not threaten lives and properties should they be dislodged by heavy rain and turn into mudslides.
The 2,460-metre Mayon, a perfect cone rising 330 kilometres southeast of Manila, is the country's most active volcano — now on its 52nd eruption in four centuries.
It killed 1,200 people when it buried the town of Cagsawa
in 1814.
Duterte pledges help for thousands of displaced
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday visited an eastern province where tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the eruption of the country's most active volcano.
Duterte gave officials in Albay province, 330 kilometres south of Manila, an initial 20mn pesos ($400,000) for food and other relief supplies for nearly 82,000 residents forced to flee their homes due to the eruption of the Mayon volcano.
He said the money should also be used to increase surveillance of diseases as well as improve hygiene and sanitation in evacuation centres to protect the health of the displaced residents.
'In every catastrophic event, whether man-made or nature, we face the same problem, he said.It is a recurring one. First is the problem of human beings... that is the most difficult work of government, how to handle human beings in a crisis.
'Usually when there is a congregation there, near each other, infection can break out in a matter of days, he added.It is always demanded of the situation that we safeguard the health of the people. Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Insitute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said the activity of Mayon was not as intense as the past week, but the alert remained at Level 4, which means a hazardous eruption was still possible.
'We cannot say that the activity has weakened, he said.Visually it may seem that the unrest has weakened, but actually the lava emission is continuing.
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