Mayon activities: No need to watch

MANILA, Philippines - A Costa Rican seismologist has advised Filipinos not to continue watching the activities of Mayon volcano despite its apparent “aborted” major eruption during the Christmas season.

Guillermo Alvarado, head of the Seismology Department of Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, said Filipinos should maintain vigilance in monitoring the activities of the volcano to be able to minimize the effect of damage of explosion to the people.

“There are good and bad things about Mayon volcano. The good thing is it (eruption) never happened, but the bad thing is that people tend to lose their expectations, and the next time when the experts warn them, people might not believe, but “aborted” eruption is normal to volcanoes,” Alvarado told The STAR. “By the next month or year, Mayon will continue its minor activities.”

The STAR interview with Alvarado was part of the 11-day training sponsored by Japan International Cooperation Agency on Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management program for members of the media from all over the globe.

The training was timely with a number of disasters taking place in different parts of the world.

JICA chose The STAR as the only representatives from the Philippines for the training ongoing from Jan. 14 to 24. Members of the media from 11 different countries are participating in the JICA program.

Alvarado said he was aware of the “aborted” eruption of Mayon in December, when authorities particularly from the Albay provincial government implemented forced evacuation of over 10,000 residents out of harm’s way as the volcano had some activities that could lead to a major eruption.

Being a seismologist for over 25 years, Alvardo said Mayon has been in the news during its activities like tremor and spewing of ashes last month.

“I do not know why Mayon had an aborted eruption. Usually a volcano is like a person, with changing mood. There are volcanoes which remain relatively quiet, each volcano has its own characteristic,” said Alvarado. “In the case of Mayon, it can produce hazardous eruption.”

Back in Costa Rica, Alvarado said there are five active volcanoes, and 15 dormant volcanoes, meaning never had any eruption in historical period or about five centuries.

Before he left for Japan on Jan. 6, Alvarado said Turrialba, one of the five active volcanoes, had a major eruption.

The Great Hanshin-Awaji

Exactly five years ago Sunday, Japan was shaken by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake where over 6,000 persons were killed and left the entire Kobe devastated, now known as “The Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake.”

As part of the effort to commemorate the fateful day - Jan. 17, 1995, Japanese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Koreans and other people from different parts of the world held yesterday their traditional World Takidashi Affair to start commemorating victims of the Great Awaji earthquake.

The event was held at the compound of independent governmental agency JICA Hyogo and participated in, by over a hundred residents of Kobe and trainees from all over the globe.

Filipina Liza Hisanaga prepared and cooked at least three kilos of Filipino-version of pork barbeque and offered it to Kobe locals and foreigners who joined the event. She said she brought soy sauce from the Philippines and used it in her barbeque, which some foreigners said was delicious.

Hisanaga, who worked in a car company in Japan, said she arrived in Japan seven years ago and did not personally experience the earthquake tragedy but she came to love the takidashi tradition.

A native of Quezon province, she is a Japanese with whom she has a twin boys now 11 years old and decided to stay in Japan. She was with several Filipino friends during the affair.

The affair started after the 1995 earthquake when people in the rubble could not find anything to eat until people, who had the means cooked hot soup and rice and distributed it to the affected individuals. Since then, people in Kobe has made it a tradition.