Taal Volcano erupted!!

-
Taal Volcano is the world's smallest volcano, sitting in a lake in an island (Volcano Island), within a lake (Taal Lake) surrounded by an island (Luzon). Tourists looking at Taal Island from Tagaytay City typically mistake Binintiang Malaki as the main crater; but in fact, Binintiang Malaki is dormant and used to be the active crater in the 18th century eruptions.


This year, Taal Volcano took centre stage when it erupted on January 12, after more than two decades of seismic activity. It's the first time I've seen it erupt because it's last explosion was in 1977... way before I was born. It's fascinating to watch from a distance (watching on the telly) but I'm sure that it must be terrifying for the people living on the island and along the coast. Livelihoods disrupted; tourists and buildings literally shook by the frequent earthquakes; ecosystems changed.

Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020 (reduced).gif
By Buszmail - This file was derived from:  Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.webm, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Joys was in Tagaytay when the volcano erupted and was stranded there because the ash fall lowered visibility enough to prevent her evacuation. Kuya Jun-jun said that they were okay in Alitagtag despite the proximity to the volcano because the wind directed the ash away from where he and his family live. Mark, hailing from Lemery, was able to evacuate; Lemery had a lot of earthquakes strong enough to create fissures on the road.

Fortunately, Taal Volcano quieted down as January closed. Life will rapidly go back to normal, in my opinion. There might be some lag time for the lake's aquaculture industry to recover, though, leading to a temporary shortage of the popular Taal tilapia.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more