MANILA
\nA volcano erupted in the central Philippines on Thursday evening, sending a billowing plume of ash about 2,500 meters (1.5 miles) into the nighttime sky.
\nThe two-minute eruption began at 7:04 p.m. (1104 GMT), state volcanology agency director Teresito Bacolcol said, saying \u201cthere might be a bigger explosive eruption in the next few days.\u201d
\nKanlaon Volcano, one of 24 active volcanoes in the archipelago nation, has had several major eruptions in the past century \u2014 including a 1996 blast that killed three hikers who were near the summit at the time.
\n\u201cThis is the second moderate eruption in a week,\u201d Bacolcol said in a phone interview, adding his agency would monitor the volcano for 24 hours before deciding if it should raise the alert level from two to three on its five-point scale.
\n\u201cThis event generated a plume that rose 2,500 meters above the crater before drifting southwest. Incandescent ballistics were observed to have rained around the crater,\u201d the volcanology center said in a statement released minutes later.
\nJohn De Asis, a rescuer in the nearby town of La Castellana, said that ash had begun to descend on local neighborhoods.
\n\u201cTonight, we heard a sudden, loud boom, then after a few minutes, people started reporting that there was ashfall in their areas,\u201d he said, noting that rescue personnel were handing out facemasks.
\nBacolcol said it was possible that \u201cgas pressure had built up at the vent\u201d of the volcano. He said recent low sulfur dioxide emissions suggested a potential blockage that would have caused pressure to build.
\nThe volcano, which straddles Negros Oriental and Occidental provinces, currently has a four-kilometer exclusion zone in place.
\nThe Philippines is on the seismically active region of the Pacific known as the \u201cRing of Fire,\u201d where more than half the world\u2019s volcanoes are located.
\nThe most powerful volcanic explosion in the Philippines in recent years was the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Manila, which killed more than 800 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA A volcano erupted in the central Philippines on Thursday evening, sending a billowing plume of ash about 2,500 meters (1.5 miles) into the nighttime sky. The two-minute eruption began at 7:04 p.m. (1104 GMT), state volcanology agency director Teresito Bacolcol said, saying \u201cthere might be a bigger explosive eruption in the next few days.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-533717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n