Residents panicked after seeing Taal Volcano in the Philippines spew out a thick plume of white smoke on Saturday, January 29.
Video taken in Batangas province shows the mushroom cloud billowing out from the volcano’s crater. Onlooker Charlie Dino said: ‘We get scared every time it emits smoke because that’s what it looked like before it erupted.’
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it had recorded nine ‘weak phreatomagmatic bursts’ from 3:50 pm on January 29 to 4:49 am on January 30 local time. The agency added that each burst lasted between 10 seconds to two minutes.
Taal Volcano is currently under Alert Level 2, indicating a moderate level of volcanic unrest that may include earthquakes, gas emission, and intermittent ash explosions.
A phreatomagmatic burst is an eruption caused by magma and water interacting with each other, leading to an ejection of both steam and pyroclastic material, the United States Geological Survey said.