TAL VOLCOONO, Philippines (AP) – The island is a ghost town, with its trees covered in a gray landscape covered only by dead sticks, its homes and school ash covered and damaged by a series of earthquakes and eruptions a year ago.
Fisherman Roselito Kakao pays regular visits to his home on a volcanic island south of the Philippine capital. “I missed our luggage but it’s now in the ashes. Our livestock like cows, our horses, pigs, boats and engines are all covered in volcanoes. That’s what I’m missing.”
Luisa Silva lived in the footsteps of Tal Tal volcano and said that life would never be like this. “Life is very difficult right now, we are not used to it. This is where we’ve experienced things we’ve never experienced before, we don’t know where to start.
Silva wants to return to the island if the government allows. She said they would grow vegetables on the island and raise livestock in their homes to save them from the need to buy food. Their animals also once took tourists to see the picturesque pit.
A popular tourist spot, located in the middle of the lake, Tal erupted on January 12, 2020.
More than 5,000,000 people, many of them working as tour guides, fled from the volcanic ash-ash and the small island filled with steam in the sky as the ground shook. Hundreds of horses, cows and other animals were left.
The eruption sparked an initial crisis that would make it one of the most difficult years in the world. The COVID-19 epidemic hit the country just months after the volcano sent 6,300,000 people fleeing for safety.
Many migrants lived in state-run emergency shelters for a while, and returned to the ash-covered towns and cities of Batangas province as the risks diminished.
But the volcanic island in Tal Lake is very dangerous, and the government bans the return of former residents.
Some have found other homes, but a year after the explosion, about 500 families are still living in tents and taking refuge in strange jobs. The rest of the families living in the tent will be relocated soon, said Jimmy Tenorio, head of Calout Village.
Meanwhile, the lake has been blazing with a small quake from the crater on Monday and a weak plumb of steam.
