Evacuations under way as Philippine volcano erupts

MANILA — A volcano briefly erupted in the central Philippines on Monday, sending a huge ash column high into the sky as the government ordered the evacuation of surrounding villages.

Rising more than 2,400 metres above sea level on the central island of Negros, Kanlaon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the Philippines.

A nearly four-minute eruption occurred at 3:03 pm (7:03 GMT), sending a four-kilometre ash column above the crater and a deadly spurt of hot ash, gases and fragmented volcanic rock about 3.4 kilometres down the mountain's southeast flank, officials told a news conference.

They warned that more explosive eruptions could follow shortly.

"Getting hit by these pyroclastic density currents is like being run over by a high-speed vehicle," said Maria Antonia Bornas, volcano monitoring chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

"If the ash enters your lungs it would cause asphyxiation," she said, urging local officials to evacuate 15 villages within six kilometres of the crater.

She said ash from the eruption rained down on several nearby towns and cities around the volcano, though there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

She also warned heavy rain could dislodge the fresh volcanic sediment from the latest eruption, which could bury communities below.

"Evacuations are ongoing" in four upland villages of La Castellana town, on the volcano's southwest slope, municipal police officer Staff Sergeant Ronel Arevalo told AFP, adding he did not have the total number of residents to be evacuated.

La Castellana resident Dianne Paula Abendan, 24, used her mobile phone to take a video clip of a giant cauliflower-shaped grey mass of smoke billowing above the crater.

"These past few days we've seen black smoke coming out of (the) volcano. We were expecting that it would erupt anytime this week," she told AFP by phone.

Abendan said people rushed home to await evacuation orders, but added that the volcanic activity appeared to ease slightly about an hour later.

Authorities said flights to and from the Bacolod-Silay international airport, nearest the volcano, remained normal, but carriers were warned from flying below 3,000 metres near the volcano.

"Flight operators are advised to avoid flying close to the volcano due to possible hazards of sudden steam-driven or phreatic eruptions and precursory magmatic activity," said an official bulletin from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

In September hundreds of nearby residents were evacuated after the volcano spurted thousands of tonnes of harmful gases in a single day.

The seismology office said Kanlaon has erupted more than 40 times since 1866.

In 1996 three hikers were killed due to ash ejection from the volcano.