Only ash, shells from houses left on volcano island

LANGUAGE VOLCANO, Philippines (AP) – The island is a ghost town, the trees are just dead sticks in a gray landscape, the houses and school are covered with ash and damaged by ongoing earthquakes and the explosive volcanic eruption that happened a year ago.

Fisherman Rogelito Cacao regularly visits his home on the volcanic island south of the Philippine capital. “I miss our belongings but it is now covered with ashes, our livestock such as our cow, our horse, our pig, our boat and engines are all covered by the volcano, this is what I am missing.”

Luisa Silva lived at the foot of the Taal volcano and said life will never be the same again. “At the moment life is very difficult, we are not used to that. This is where we’ve been through things we’ve never experienced before, we don’t know where to start, ”she said.

Silva wants to return to the island if the government allows it. She said they can grow vegetables and keep livestock at their homes on the island so they don’t have to buy food. Their animals once also carried tourists to see the picturesque crater.

Taal, a popular tourist destination in the middle of a lake, erupted on January 12, 2020.

More than 5,000 people, many of whom worked as tour guides, fled the small island as the ground shook and the volcano vomited dark gray ash and steam into the air. Hundreds of horses, cows and other animals were left behind.

The eruption sparked an early crisis in what was to be a difficult year in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries. A few months after the volcano displaced more than 376,000 people, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.

Many evacuees stayed in state-run emergency shelters for a while, then returned to the ash-covered villages and towns of Batangas province when the dangers abated.

But the volcanic island in Taal Lake is too dangerous and the government is forbidding former residents to return.

Some have found other housing, but about 50 families are still living in tents a year after the eruption, resorting to chores. Jimmy Tenorio, village chief in Calauit, said the rest of the families living in tents will be relocated soon.

Meanwhile, Taal is still growling, with small earthquakes and faint plumes of steam emerging from the crater on Monday.