Mount Mayon, the Philippines’ most active volcano, was erupting like a fountain as molten lava poured down the side, according to experts from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).
Lava has advanced a few miles from the volcano’s crater and ash reached up to 2km as it fell on nearby villages and communities.
More than 30,000 people have been evacuated from a four-mile area from the volcano’s slopes as the eruption continues but no injuries have been reported so far.
But many fear another eruption, which experts warned could happen within days, could be as deadly as the terrifying eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991.
Where is Mt Pinatubo
Mount Pinatubo is a volcano on the island of Luzon in the Philippines – the same island where Mount Mayon is located.
It is part of a chain of volcanoes which lie along the western side of the island of Luzon called the Zambales Mountains.
The active volcano lies 55 miles northwest of the capital city of Manila and is 1,486 m (4,875 ft) high.
What happened when Mt Pinatubo erupted in 1991
Mount Pinatubo had been dormant for 500 years when it erupted in June 1991, resulting in the most disruptive and ready eruptions of the 20th century.
The eruption killed 847 people and displaced thousands more by burying the surrounding land with thick layers of ash.
Before the eruption, Pinatubo was covered with tropical vegetation and was home to some 30,000 people who lived on its slopes.
But after the huge explosion, thick deposits of tephra, streams of pyroclastic flow, and lahars caused significant damage – along with ejecting millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.
Will Mount Mayon erupt like Mount Pinatubo
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) assured the public on Wednesday that the danger posed by Mayon Volcano’s continuous activity would not be as great as that of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption.
Phivolcs chief Renato Solidum said that Mount Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991 involved a different composition of magma compared to that of Albay’s cone-shaped volcano, which is less acidic.
He said: “Mayon is less acidic… In volcanoes like Pinatubo, the magma is very viscous, it traps the gas within.”
But he also reminded people a possible explosive eruption was “not the only factor [to consider if] people are threatened” but the “type of activity and the nearness of people to the source of activity” as well.
Phivolcs has so far recorded a total of 143 lava collapses and a tremor at Mount Mayon as of 8 am Wednesday.
Alert Level 3 remains raised over Mayon which means that it is “currently in a relatively high level of unrest as magma is at the crater and hazardous eruption is possible within weeks or even days.”