Mt. Bulusan major ash explosion forces evacuation

Mt. Bulusan massive ash explosion covers 3 cities, 41 villages

Philippines Mt Bulusan volcano erupted again Monday at 01:12UTC showering at least three towns with large quantities of ash.

The ash explosion as seen from the town of Irosin, about 600km SE of Manila, Philippines. Bulusan Volcano is located in Sorsogon province in Bicol region. Credit AP. Image may be subject to copyright.

A massive ash plume from the 1,560-m volcano drifted south covering the town of Irosin (population: 46,000), according to a civil defense operations official.

“There’s zero visibility at Irosin at the moment, and we can’t get in touch with officials there,” he told AFP.

A state volcanologist told AFP that explosion sounds were followed by an ash column that rose by up to  2.5km (1.6 miles) above the crater.

Map of the Philippines Volcanoes. Click image to enlarge.

“The huge plume of grayish smoke shot up to more than a mile (2 kilometers) toward the blue sky, with the ash drifting southwest toward four farming towns in Sorsogon province, where about 1,200 villagers fled to emergency shelters and houses of relatives, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency.” AP reported.

“Volcanic ash has fallen in the towns of Casiguran and Juban, located at the foot of the volcano. Philippine troops will be evacuating some 1,000 residents from these two towns,” Xinhua quoted an official as saying.

The explosion at Bulusan volcano lasted for 19 minutes, starting at 09:12 local time (01:12UTC) and has since affected at least 100,000 people in 3 towns and 41 villages in the surrounding areas, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council said.

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Gulf of Mexico: 10cm layer of dead animals and oil

NO SIGN OF SEALIFE

Deepwater Horizon oil leak “devastated” life on and near the seafloor:  Marine scientist

A research submersible discovered a 10cm thick layer of dead animals and oil in places, said Samantha Joye, a marine scientist  at the University of Georgia.

It’s implausible that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012, she said disputing BP’s assessment, a report said.

“Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.”

Professor Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington that it may be a decade before the full effects on the Gulf are apparent.

She said they concluded the layers had been deposited between June and September 2010 after it was discovered that no sign of sealife from samples taken in May remained.

Professor Joye and her team, using the Alvin submersible,  examined the bottom-most layer of the water close to the well head, known as the benthos.

“The impact on the benthos was devastating,” she told BBC News.

“Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans – all of those were substantially impacted – and by impacted, I mean essentially killed.

“Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn’t see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They’re typically everywhere, and we saw none.” More…

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• Oil Disasters