At least half a million individuals will have to be evacuated in case of a “violent eruption” in Taal Volcano, National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council executive director Ricardo Jalad said yesterday.
“Based on our risk assessment, we will evacuate half a million people in case of a violent eruption according to the risk map that was created by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology,” Jalad said.
He said the evacuees will include residents from Tagaytay in Cavite and Lemery in Batangas.
Jalad said the “worst case scenario” includes possible emission of poisonous gas, volcanic tsunamis, and falling debris.
“That is the worst case scenario, but because of the improvement of the risk assessment capacity of Phivolcs, we can now implement a calibrated response,” he said.
For now, only residents in five barangays in the towns of Laurel and Agoncillo that are nearest to Taal Volcano Island have been evacuated.
Phivolcs maintained Alert Level 3 over Taal Volcano as it logged seven volcanic earthquakes in the past 24 hours.
Some 3,000 residents have already evacuated from their homes after the volcano erupted on July 1 and generated a one-kilometer high phreatomagmatic plume.