The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) warned on Wednesday that there is a high chance of magmatic eruption at Kanlaon Volcano, which is under Alert Level 2.

In a “Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon” briefing, Phivolcs Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division chief Mariton Bornas said Kanlaon has released 9,958 tonnes of sulfur dioxide per day, the highest emission since 2009.

On late Wednesday, Phivolcs said 11,556 tonnes were emitted by Kanlaon, the highest since monitoring began.

She added that in the past 24 hours, they have recorded 337 volcano tectonic earthquakes and an additional 65 volcano tectonic earthquakes in the afternoon.

“Due to the highness of our monitoring parameters, this is really anomalous, there is a high chance that we will have a magmatic eruption,” Bornas said.

“Our challenge is the daily monitoring so we can detect if the magmatic eruption that we are watching over will happen. We cannot tell what time, day, week or month when the volcanic eruption will occur. We have to analyze and evaluate every day especially when it comes to a volcano like Kanlaon Volcano which hasn’t had a magmatic eruption in a long time,” she added.

“Kanlaon Volcano’s eruptions since 1902 were all phreatic and steam-driven eruptions,” Bornas said.

Phivolcs bans the public from entering the four-kilometer radius permanent danger zone and advises against planes flying near the volcano. Jaspearl Tan/DMS