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REFLECTION
(Mount Mayon)
This topic was very broad so we had a lot of things to choose from. We began with the idea
of the Mayon volcano. This was an intriguing ideabecause it was something that I
had never thought about before and it wassomething that would affect the whole country.
As we began to research the subjectseemed to broad so we decided to narrow it down to
just one volcano. This is a volcano located on the bicol region of the country. I learned a
lot about thisvolcano. It is in the top 5 of a list of the most active volcanoes and it is
number 1 forthe most deadly. The volcano has been active for about 10,000 years so it has
hadtime to rack up a large body count. The most deadly thing about this volcano is that it
is so active and has been for so long.
Some volcanoes can have a high death toll from one massive eruption and then
become dormant. In the case of Mt.Mayon, it has a lot of large eruptions that are spread
out over time, most of the eruptions resulting in devastating effects for the people. During
an eruption in 1930 about1,300 people were killed from various things (ash inhalation,
landslides, lava flow,fires.) In a more recent eruption in 2010 about 144-300 people
were confirmeddead or missing.So why is there such a high body count? One factor could
be that there areabout 100,000 people living at the base of the volcano, and they keep
coming back.after each eruption. You can’t really blame them though. A large part of the
economy
in The Philippines is from farming and some of the most fertile soil is from volcanoes.
Notonly does farming help the county as a whole but it is often the only source ofincome
for the people. They have established a way of life and it looks like thevolcano is not going
to scare them away. There are warning systems in place and thegovernment will try to
evacuate the villagers if they are in danger,but that doesn’t always work since the people
(mostly older generations) refuse to leave until it istoo late. We even found a picture,
while researching, of an elderly woman beingcarried away from her home in 2010.
She refused to leave but the lava flow was stillon its way so for her safety she was forced
to go. I found it very interesting how hardit is to evacuate the villages.
I suppose it would be hard for me to leave my home andall my belongings if I lived
near a volcano, but I would still go. A lot of the peoplewho are killed during the eruptions
