Nearly 15,000 Philippine residents were evacuated on Monday from their homes in face of an imminent eruption of Mayon volcano, according to the authorities.

About 3,000 families or 15,000 people have sought shelter in state-run resettlement centers under the help of the government and military soldiers, Cedric Daep, chief disaster management officer of the Albay Province, told Xinhua.

The evacuees came from the towns of Guinobatan, Santo Domingo, Daraga, Camalig and the cities of Tabaco, Ligao and Legazpi, he said.

Classes were suspended as some schools are being used as evacuation sites, he added.

Albay Governor Fernando Gonzales, meanwhile, said there are funds for the evacuees. He added that the national government has assured it will provide monetary assistance once the local funds were exhausted.

The local government units will shoulder the needs of the evacuees for three days starting Monday, and the provincial government will handle the evacuees' expenses beginning Thursday, according to officials.

The alert over Mayon volcano reached level four on early Monday morning and triggered the mass evacuation. Six minor explosions in the crater were monitored, forming an ash column of more than 1,000 meters high, according to PHIVOLCS, or Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

The volcano, 300 km southeast of Manila, came into mild eruption on July 14, when PHIVOLCS declared the alert level three. The lava flows have reached as far as 100 meters beyond the six-km radius permanent danger zone since then.

"Mayon is almost ready to burst," said Ernesto Corpus, head of the volcanology section of PHIVOLCS.
 
(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2006)