Family Life

12.21.09 | FL News Team

People in the Philippines are bracing for a massive volcano eruption that could happen any day now. The Mayon [[ My-on ]] volcano in the country's central region has been rumbling to life in the past week. At first Mayon spewed ash and burning rocks and mud, but on Sunday it began spewing lava fountains 650-feet high. Filipino scientists recorded two-thousand separate volcanic quakes yesterday. They raised their alert to Level Four, meaning an eruption is imminent. Level Five would mean an eruption's underway. The Philippine Army has evacuated more than 50-thousand people from Mayon's slopes and passed out face masks to keep out the hot ash. There's a 24-hour curfew in the "no-go" zone, with checkpoints as far as six miles from the volcano. Mayon is the most active of the 22 volcanoes in the Philippines.