Manila tells villagers around volcano to evacuate

MANILA, July 18 (Reuters) Philippine authorities ordered about 4,000 people to evacuate their homes and farms near an erupting volcano in the central region, disaster officials said today.

On Friday, volcanologists raised the alert level to 3 on a 1-5 scale after 2,462-metre Mount Mayon began spewing ash and lava.

The experts said Mayon, the most active of 22 volcanoes in the Southeast Asian country, was showing signs of a major eruption within weeks.

''Residents outside the danger zone were also advised to be vigilant due to risks of rockfalls and pyroclastic flows on the volcano's slopes,'' the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a statement today.

Phivolcs said volcanic tremors had eased but lava continued to flow from Mayon's crater, creating a stream of incandescent mud and rocks as far as 800 metres down the southeastern slope.

''It's better if we evacuate the more than 4,000 people,'' said Defence Secretary Avelino Cruz, who is also chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), after a meeting to draw up emergency plans around Mayon.

Cruz said he would ask local officials in Albay province in the central Bicol region to start moving people from villages within the danger zone, a 6-km radius from the crater.

More than 4,300 farmers on the lower slopes of Mayon have refused to leave until alert level 4 was raised.

''The reason why we are still here is because life is difficult,'' vegetable farmer Virgina Bernares told Reuters. ''If we leave, what will we do? Where will they take us? This place is where we get our food.'' An estimated 60,000 people in Albay province would be evacuated in the event of a major eruption, disaster official Cedric Daep said on Saturday.

Phivolcs has also been watching Mount Bulusan in nearby Sorsogon province after it spewed ash and vented steam in March. Last month, volcanologists raised the alert level there to 2.

The Philippines lies on the ''Ring of Fire'', a belt of volcanoes that circles the Pacific Ocean that is also prone to earthquakes.

Mayon has erupted about 50 times over the past 400 years, with a destructive explosion in 1841 when lava flows buried a town and killed 1,200 people. It last erupted in 2000 and 2001.

REUTERS SHB RK1725