By Canadian Press

Philippine volcano’s quakes, cracks send more people fleeing

Jan 15, 2020 | 11:59 PM

LEMERY, Philippines — A Philippine volcano belched smaller plumes of ash but shuddered continuously with earthquakes and opened cracks in roads Thursday as police blockaded at-risk towns due to fears of a bigger eruption.

A crater lake and nearby river have dried up in signs of the Taal volcano’s continuing restiveness, and officials have warned people against speculating the five-day eruption is waning. Soldiers and police blocked villagers from sneaking back by boats to the volcanic island and nearby towns to retrieve belongings, poultry and cattle.

Many houses and farms have been damaged by volcanic ash since the eruption started Sunday, though no deaths or major injuries have been reported after tens of thousands of people evacuated. The volcano in Batangas province lies more than 65 kilometres (40 miles) south of the capital, Manila.

Amid warnings of an imminent and more dangerous eruption, police cordoned off at least four towns along or near the coast of a lake surrounding volcano island, sparking arguments with villagers.

“We’ve lost everything, our house got damaged, but I need to retrieve my pots and cooking wares and other things. They should not be very, very strict,” 59-year-old Erlinda Landicho told The Associated Press.

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Landicho, who fled with her son from Lemery municipality as the volcano erupted, was among a throng of villagers stopped by police from reentering the ash-blanketed town. A firetruck blocked a key access road and police set up checkpoints. Beyond the barricade, Lemery looked like a ghost town partly shrouded in swirling ash.

More than 121,000 people fled their homes just in Batangas province, which has declared a state of calamity to allow faster releases of emergency funds. At least 373 evacuation sites were crammed with displaced villagers and needed more ash masks, portable toilets, bottled water and sleeping mats, according to a provincial disaster-response office.

The government’s main-disaster agency reported a little more than 65,000 people were displaced by the eruption in Batangas and Cavite province. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

Among those displaced were about 5,000 people who live on the island where the Taal volcano lies. The island had been a popular tourist destination for its stunning view of the volcano’s crater lake and lush hills teeming with trees and birds. Some villagers have slipped past checkpoints to retrieve some of the hundreds of cows and horses they left behind, prompting the coast guard and police to intensify a security cordon.

A villager who returned from the island described to AP how the island now resembles an ash-blanketed wasteland.

About four villages exist on the island despite it being a permanent danger zone. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has recommended that villagers should not be allowed back.

The 1,020-foot (311-meter) Taal is one of the world’s smallest volcanoes but also one of the most restive of 24 active volcanoes across the Philippines. The Southeast Asian archipelago of more than 100 million people is in the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the string of faults around the ocean basin where most of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

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Gomez reported from Manila. Associated Press journalist Joeal Calupitan contributed to this report.

Aaron Favila And Jim Gomez, The Associated Press