A bird eye's view of the active Taal Volcano in Lake Taal, on the island of Luzon near Manila, Phillipines. -- STPHOTO: BANU KANNU
MANILA - MORE quakes and gas emissions have been detected from a volcano on an island close to the Philippine capital, possibly indicating an eruption is looming, the government said on Saturday.
Twenty volcanic quakes were detected at Taal Volcano in the 24 hours to Saturday 8am (0000 GMT, 8am Singapore time) compared to 15 quakes in the same period on Friday, indicating that magma is still rising to the surface, the volcanology institute said.
Additionally, the water in the crater of Taal is heating up while the volcano's emissions of carbon dioxide have risen from 1,875 tonnes per day in February to 4,670 tonnes by the end of March.
'If this trend continues, we may have to raise alert level again,' said Mr Paul Alanis of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs). People were warned not to approach Taal's crater or parts of its slopes where gas could still vent out.
Phivolcs on April 9 raised the second of a five-step alert around Taal Volcano, a popular tourist attraction 65km south of Manila, after detecting signs that magma was rising to the top of the volcano.
However Mr Alanis said this does not mean an eruption is imminent and that the volcano might yet stabilise. Despite government pleas for people to leave the 2,500-hectare crater island, only 163 of the estimated 7,000 people living there have evacuated, the civil defence agency said in a statement. -- AFP
