(Eagle News) — The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has lowered the alert level raised over Taal volcano to 1.
According to PHIVOLCS, the move was made with Taal’s condition in the past two months characterized by “baseline volcanic earthquake activity, stabilizing ground deformation of the Taal Caldera and Taal Volcano Island (TVI) edifices and weak degassing and surface activity at the Main Crater.”
PHIVOLCS said the Taal Volcano Network (TVN), in particular, recorded a decline in the daily average of volcanic earthquakes from seven events/day between January 1 and May 31 to zero events per day since June 13.
A continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring from November 2021 to April 2022 and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) monitoring from January 2021 to June 2022 also showed the short- to medium-term deflation of Taal.
The latest emission rates also fell to 237 tons per day.
Surface activity, meanwhile, has declined to a “weak emission of 300- to 2,400-meter tall steam-rich plumes from fumaroles or active gas vents on the Main Crater.”
Despite the lowering of the alert level, PHIVOLCS noted that the volcano remains in “abnormal condition and should not be interpreted that unrest has ceased or that the threat of an eruption has disappeared.”
“Should an uptrend or pronounced change in monitored parameters forewarn of renewed unrest, the Alert Level may be raised back to Alert Level 2,” it said.