LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines — Mayon Volcano erupted on Friday, October 30, 2026, sending a column of ash 3,000 metres above its summit crater and prompting the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, known as PHIVOLCS, to raise the volcano’s alert status to Level 3. The eruption, described by PHIVOLCS as moderately explosive, began at 11:53 a.m. local time, and local governments in Albay province moved quickly to evacuate residents from the six-kilometre permanent danger zone around the volcano.
PHIVOLCS said in its Mayon Volcano Eruption Notification No. 1 that the eruption was still ongoing at the time of its latest advisory on Friday. The agency’s decision to raise the alert from Level 2 to Level 3 signalled, in its own wording, an increased tendency towards a hazardous eruption. That is a specific term in the Philippine alert system: Level 2 denotes decreased unrest, while Level 3 means the volcano is showing signs that a hazardous eruption is more likely, though not yet certain. The distinction matters, because it is the trigger for mandatory evacuation, class suspensions and the full activation of local disaster councils.
The ash plume, which rose 3,000 metres — roughly 10,000 feet — above the crater, was carried to the west-southwest by moderate winds, according to PHIVOLCS. Ashfall was reported in Camalig and Guinobatan, and in upland areas of Legazpi City, with the United States Embassy’s natural disaster alert also listing Daraga among the communities where ashfall was expected. Residents in the affected towns described a dense, grey column rising from the volcano’s near-perfect cone, a sight that is both familiar and frightening in Albay, where Mayon dominates the landscape and the local economy in equal measure.
Mayon Volcano eruption: what Alert Level 3 means for Albay
Under Alert Level 3, PHIVOLCS recommended the evacuation of all residents within the six-kilometre radius permanent danger zone, citing the danger of pyroclastic density currents, lava flows, rockfalls and other volcanic hazards. Pyroclastic density currents, known locally as “uson,” are fast-moving clouds of hot gas, ash and rock that can race down a volcano’s slopes at speeds no person can outrun. They are, along with lava flows and lahars — fast-moving mixtures of volcanic debris and water that surge down river channels, especially during heavy rain — the hazards that make the danger zone a no-go area rather than a precautionary suggestion.
The agency’s guidance was blunt. Entry into the six-kilometre permanent danger zone was prohibited because of those hazards, and PHIVOLCS advised the public to stay updated through its official website and social media accounts. The Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office, known as APSEMO, barred all human activity inside the zone, including mountain climbing, orchid picking and vegetable harvesting. All-terrain vehicle rides were limited to the Cagsawa Ruins area only, a restriction that underlined how completely normal life around the volcano was being paused.
Local governments acted on that guidance within hours. APSEMO head Bobby Cristobal said Camalig, Malilipot and Tabaco City began evacuating residents immediately after the alert was raised around noon. The provincial government ordered a mandatory preemptive evacuation of residents inside the danger zone, and the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council was placed on red alert. Red alert status means the emergency operations centre operates around the clock, all disaster risk management personnel and responders are required to report for duty, emergency plans are set in motion, evacuation centres are opened and all responders are in operation.
By 2 p.m. on Friday, the Office of Civil Defense in Bicol reported that 205 families had been evacuated in Camalig and 152 in Tabaco City. Authorities said they expected to accommodate about 1,133 families from eight towns and cities surrounding Mayon in temporary shelters, a figure based on previous counts of residents living inside the danger zone. The Manila Times reported that more than 1,000 families, or more than 4,000 individuals, would be evacuated to temporary shelters starting at 1 p.m. on Friday. The Department of Social Welfare and Development said it had started preparations to deliver food assistance to evacuees, and trucks from the Provincial Engineer’s Office, the Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine Army were mobilised to support the movement of people and supplies.
Albay Governor Noel Rosal suspended classes at all levels in public and private schools across the province, first in the most affected areas and then province-wide, to ensure the safety of students and teachers. Schools whose facilities would be used as evacuation centres were advised to shift to alternative learning methods and to coordinate with education officials. The provincial government also reminded residents to wear face masks in anticipation of ashfall, a simple measure that matters a great deal when fine volcanic ash is in the air: ash can irritate eyes, skin and lungs, contaminate water supplies, damage crops and make roads slippery and dangerous to drive on.
PHIVOLCS also warned that aircraft should avoid flying close to the mountain, a standard precaution when ash is being ejected, because volcanic ash can damage aircraft engines and obscure visibility. The agency said Mayon had entered a new phase of magmatic eruption, with increased chances of lava flows and hazardous pyroclastic density currents affecting the upper to middle slopes of the volcano in the immediate days to weeks. That phrasing — days to weeks, not hours — is important for residents and officials alike, because it signals that the evacuation and the disruption are unlikely to be over by the weekend.
A familiar pattern: Mayon in 2018 and 2023
For the people of Albay, Friday’s eruption was not an unfamiliar event. Mayon, which rises 2,462 metres above sea level about 330 kilometres southeast of Manila, is the most active volcano in the Philippines, with more than 50 recorded eruptions since the 1600s. Its near-perfect cone, which draws tourists from around the world, is itself the product of repeated eruptions layering lava, ash and rock evenly down its slopes. The same symmetry that makes Mayon beautiful also makes it dangerous, because communities, farms and towns have grown up close to its base over generations.
The most recent large-scale episodes before 2026 came in 2018 and 2023, and both illustrate why the province’s response on Friday was so swift. In January 2018, Mayon began showing heightened activity on January 13, and PHIVOLCS raised the alert step by step, from Level 1 to Level 2, then to Level 3, and finally to Level 4 on January 22, when a phreatomagmatic eruption generated a dense ash plume five kilometres high. Lava fountains rose 500 to 700 metres above the crater, ash fell heavily on Ligao City and the municipalities of Guinobatan, Daraga, Oas and Polangui, and lava flowed down the Mi-isi and Bonga gullies.
The 2018 evacuation grew rapidly. By January 23, about 40,000 people had been evacuated, and by January 26 the total reached 81,618 people, including 69,672 people in 69 evacuation centres and others staying with relatives, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Schools used as evacuation centres disrupted classes for almost 50,000 students, and more than 10,000 farmers were affected, with crops worth almost 190 million Philippine pesos damaged, mostly by hot volcanic ash. The episode was a lesson in scale: a volcano that looks quiet from a distance can displace tens of thousands of people within days, and the disruption lasts long after the ash stops falling.
In June 2023, Mayon erupted again, generating tall lava domes, increased rockfall events, pyroclastic density currents and a lava flow. More than 12,000 people living on the volcano’s lower slopes were moved to evacuation centres to protect them from ash and toxic gases. The alert was lowered to Level 2 by December 2023. PHIVOLCS officials comparing the 2023 episode with later activity have noted that the 2023 eruption produced lava domes and rockfalls but relatively little ground deformation, a detail that volcanologists watch closely because deformation can indicate magma moving beneath the surface.
Mayon was restless again in 2026 well before Friday. PHIVOLCS raised the alert to Level 3 on January 6, 2026, as a lava dome formed and pyroclastic density currents began, with lava flowing down the Basud, Bonga and Mi-isi gullies for months. Activity peaked in mid-July, and PHIVOLCS lowered the alert to Level 2 on August 5, 2026, while warning that magma remained beneath the volcano and that heavy rain could trigger lahars in the gullies. On August 6, families in evacuation centres were allowed to go home. Friday’s moderately explosive eruption, and the return to Level 3, therefore sits within a longer arc of unrest in 2026, not as an isolated incident.
The longer history of Mayon is darker still. Its deadliest eruption, on February 1, 1814, sent pyroclastic material and debris over surrounding towns and killed about 1,200 people, including at Cagsawa, whose church bell tower still stands as a ruin and a memorial. That history is part of why the permanent danger zone exists at all, and why officials in Albay treat even a moderately explosive eruption with such seriousness. The Philippines as a whole sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common, and the country’s most powerful eruption in recent decades was Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which killed more than 800 people and sent an ash cloud thousands of kilometres across the region.
Disaster preparedness in a province that lives with a volcano
Albay’s disaster-preparedness system is, by necessity, one of the most practised in the Philippines. The province has a dedicated public safety and emergency management office, pre-identified evacuation centres — many of them schools — and a routine, rehearsed in 2018, 2023 and again in early 2026, for moving people out of the danger zone, counting families, distributing food and monitoring the volcano around the clock. The speed of Friday’s response — evacuations beginning immediately after the noon alert, class suspensions the same afternoon, and a red alert for the regional disaster council — reflects that practice.
Preparedness, however, does not remove hardship. Evacuation means leaving homes, farms, livestock and livelihoods behind, often for weeks, and living in crowded centres where privacy is scarce and illness can spread. Farmers inside or near the danger zone face a particular dilemma: crops and animals cannot be moved as easily as people, and ash can ruin a season’s work in a single afternoon. The Department of Social Welfare and Development’s food assistance, and the coordination between provincial, municipal and village disaster councils, are designed to bridge that gap, but no system can fully replace a lost harvest or a disrupted school term.
There are also hazards that persist after the eruption itself quiets. Lahars can occur during heavy rain long after ash has settled, as loose volcanic material is washed down river channels. Ashfall can contaminate drinking water and damage infrastructure, and the fine particles can linger in the air and on surfaces, requiring careful clean-up. That is why PHIVOLCS and local officials stress monitoring over days and weeks, rather than treating a single eruption as the end of the event, and why residents are urged to follow official updates rather than returning to the danger zone on their own judgement.
As of writing, there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in towns and cities surrounding Mayon, according to reporting by Agence France-Presse and other outlets covering the eruption on Friday. USN states that plainly because it is the limit of what is known at this stage: the absence of early casualty reports is not a guarantee that damage will not emerge as officials complete their assessments. APSEMO chief Bobby Cristobal said on Friday that authorities were still determining the extent of damage from the eruption, and that assessment will continue as evacuation counts firm up and ashfall reports are compiled.
What comes next depends on Mayon’s behaviour in the days ahead. PHIVOLCS chief for volcano monitoring, Antonia Bornas, has previously noted that further explosive activity cannot be discounted, and the agency’s Friday wording — a new phase of magmatic eruption, with hazards possible over days to weeks — leaves open both a gradual easing and a further escalation. If activity intensifies, the alert could rise again, as it did to Level 4 in 2018, and the danger zone could be extended. If it eases, the alert could eventually be lowered, as it was in August 2026, and families could return home. For now, the people of Albay are in the familiar, uneasy position of waiting on a mountain they know well, under the guidance of scientists and officials who have managed this volcano’s moods before.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from GMA News Online, Daily Tribune and U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.