40,000 flood fear Filipinos flee volcano

Thousands of Filipinos fled villages near Mount Pinatubo today as workers prepared to breach the volcano’s crater to drain a lake that could unleash mass floods on the area.

Dozens of trucks and buses took villagers 25 miles from the volcano, to evacuation centres far from a possible deluge of mud and water when workers crack the crater tomorrow morning.

Loaded vans, cars, tractors and carts pulled by water buffalo also trailed out of Botolan for fear the crater breaching could bury the town and nearby villages in up to 13 feet of debris.

Officials said as many as 40,000 people must temporarily leave the area. Workers have dug a canal to within 17 feet of a rapidly rising volcanic lake that threatens to collapse Pinatubo’s crater and flood villages.

Tomorrow morning, workers plan to use pressurised water to blast away the remaining bit of earth, draining 25% of the scenic lake.

Raymundo Punongbayan, director of the Philippine Institute for Volcanology and Seismology, cited a ‘‘20% chance of the worst case scenario’’ in which the crater breaching unleashes a violent surge of water that could collect mud and bury villages.

Any slide could travel the 25 miles to Botolan in an hour and a half, he said.

Ideally, he said, the breaching will slowly release water from the volcano and follow the path of the Bucao River, posing no threat to nearby villages.

The crater lake has been rising during the May-October rainy season and could shatter the upper walls of the 4,740 foot volcano if the water isn’t drained, geologists said.

Despite flood threats, some residents vowed to stay behind to guard their homes and businesses.

After the plug of earth is cleared, scientists expect another 26 feet of already weakened wall to erode, draining one fourth of the lake’s seven trillion cubic feet) of water in one to several days.

Pinatubo, 55 miles north of Manila, erupted in 1991, killing 800 people and spewing billions of tons of debris. The eruption blew off Pinatubo’s top, leaving a hole with an area of 2.1 square miles in its summit. The opening has acted as a collecting pot for rainwater.