Scientists have been predicting it would blow for two weeks now; however, so far all we have seen is a few belches and a little slobber running down the chin of the mountain. Fountains of red-hot lava shot up from the intensifying Mayon volcano as the Philippines awaited an imminent eruption. The government has been evacuating people for three weeks now depending on how close to the volcano they lived.
The Philippine Institute on Volcanology and Seismology is considering ratcheting up the volcano alert to the highest level, which would mean an eruption was underway, the Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported. Tens of thousands of people have already fled their homes. More than 9,000 families -- a total of 44,394 people -- are being housed in evacuation camps. Officials said not everyone is heeding their warnings -- some villagers were spotted within the danger zone checking on their homes and farms on the foothills of the volcano.
Some people just like to live on the edge.
And then some people just don't trust scientists. :-)
The government is trying to enforce a "no man's land" rule in the designated danger zone, with military and police instructed to double the personnel manning the nine checkpoints and double their foot patrol operation inside the restricted area, PNA reported. Mayon continued to show an intense level of activity during the past 24-hour observation period. Seismic activity remained elevated in number and size as the seismic network detected a total of 1,266 volcanic earthquakes.
The volcano, located about 500 km (310 miles) south of the Philippine capital of Manila, has erupted 49 times since its first documented eruption in 1616.
The Philippines is situated in the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mayon's most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people and devastated several towns. Its last major eruption was in 1993. Since then, it has remained restless, emitting ash and spewing lava.
As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.
