The Mayon volcano, which has blown its top nearly 40 times in 400 years, menaced nearby residents with small eruptions of ash and lava Wednesday as Philippine authorities moved more than 30,000 people to shelters in case of a larger eruption.
Trickles of lava rolled down the 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) mountain towering over the Albay Gulf in the central Philippines, while five new ash explosions, one of them reaching 550 yards (500 meters) in the air, shook Mayon's steep slopes, said chief state volcanologist Renato Solidum.
During the day, the summit is shrouded in white clouds of dust and ash, and dark orange lava becomes clearly visible in the nighttime. Residents of Legazpi city on the foothills of the cone-shaped mountain converge in a downtown park at night to watch the spectacle from a safe distance.
"There is the possibility that it can turn into the explosive phase of the eruption," Solidum told The Associated Press. "Right now, we cannot say for sure, but the initial phases of 2000, 2001 and 2006 eruptions are almost the same."
Lava cascades down the slopes of Mayon volcano in Legazpi city, Albay province, at dawn Tuesday Dec. 15, 2009 about 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Manila, Philippines. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, PHIVOLCS, has raised the five-alert level to three following increased activity of the country's most active volcano and residents are prohibited from venturing into the 6-kilometer (4 miles) permanent danger zone. In December 2006 ash deposits from a previous eruption rolled down its slopes at the onslaught of a typhoon killing more than a thousand residents living around the cone-shaped volcano.
Provincial governor Salceda said he had decided to cancel a trip to Copenhagen, where he was to attend the U.N. climate conference to discuss his province's experience with typhoons and other natural disasters.
He said he would appeal for foreign aid to deal with the expected influx of displaced villagers to emergency shelters.
"Whatever the volcano does, our target is zero casualty," Salceda told The Associated Press.
Magma had been rising at the volcano over the past two weeks and began to flow out of its crater Monday night, Solidum said. He said the volcano had so far only gently coughed out red-hot lava, which had flowed half a mile (half a kilometer) down from the crater.
Some classes were suspended indefinitely near the danger zone. Officials will find a way to squeeze in classes in school buildings to be used as shelters, Salceda said.
Mayon's most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people and buried a town in mud.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common. About 22 out of 37 volcanos in the archipelago are active.