Taal Expected To Erupt Again

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31001, 5 March 1966, Page 5

Taal Expected To Erupt Again

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

MANILA.

Filipino and American volcanologists believe that the Taal volcano, a few miles south of Manila, will erupt again in the next few years.

This is the volcano which erupted on September 28 last year, after remaining dormant for 54 years. It threw tons of mud and ashes hundreds of feet into the air and some 200 persons perished. More than 5000 families lost their homes. A few months before that eruption, the temperature of the lake surrounding the volcano rose some 10 degrees Centigrade. Slight tremors were felt in the area, but the Commission on Vulcanology thought that there was no immediate cause for alarm. Then, suddenly, on a quiet September morning, while the inhabitants of the volcanic island and adjoining areas were asleep, Taal awakened from its 54-year slumber. Flames shot up as high as 10,000 feet, and within a few hours three-quarters of the island was blanketed with dark greyish mud and ash. Tail lush coconut trees and houses completely vanished, covered by tons of volcanic matter.

The exact number of casualties in that sudden eruption of the volcano will never be known—not so much because the dead were too numerous to be counted as because most of the victims could neither be found nor accounted for. Many of the casualties were presumed to have been buried in their homes, many in sleep, under tons of volcanic rock, lava, mud and ashes. An undetermined number were believed to have been killed fighting for possession of fragile canoes to take them from the roaring inferno. Others were killed or drowned in the lake as rocks, mud and ashes rained upon them. Dr. James Moore, an American vulcanologist sent by President Johnson to help his Filipino colleagues evaluate other volcanoes in this 7000-island archipelago, said that Taal “expelled more than 50 million cubic metres of material during its eruption.”