Thirty-three families with 89 members escaped from their evacuation camp to return to their homes within Kanlaon Volcano’s 6-kilometer expanded danger zone in Barangay Cabagnaan, La Castellana, Negros Occidental, on Monday, June 30, an Office of Civil Defense official confirmed.
OCD Negros Island Region Director Donato Sermeno III said they have identified the person who instigated the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to escape.
The person who urged them to escape is also an IDP who owns land within the danger zone. He is believed to have provided the truck that took IDPs into the danger zone, Sermeno said.
The escaping IDPs were held at a checkpoint but were released when it was about to rain, he added.
They will have to get out of the 6-kilometer danger zone or the barangay captain will be liable if anything happens to them, Sermeno said.
The La Castellana municipal government and Incident Management Team is calling on those responsible for convincing the evacuees to leave their camp and the person who posted a video of their departure to submit written explanations or appear before the IMT or Punong Barangay Bon Sacapaño within 24 hours.
The IDPs were also urged to return to their evacuation camps.
The IDPs have been living in evacuation centers in La Castellana since Kanlaon erupted on Dec. 9. 2024 or for close to seven months.
Kanlaon is under Alert Level 3, which means that the volcano is in a state of magmatic unrest, with chances of eruptions occurring that could generate life-threatening volcanic hazards, Phivolcs has warned.
It is recommended that communities within a 6-km radius from the summit crater remain evacuated due to the danger of pyroclastic density currents or PDCs, ballistic projectiles, ashfall, rockfall and other related hazards, it added.
However, there has been growing restiveness among the IDPs who have been transferred out to classrooms where they had been staying to give way to the resumption of face-to-face classes.
The evacuees were transferred to covered courts and tents.
The IDPs who escaped had been transferred from the La Castellana Elementary School to the La Castellana Senior High School, John de Asis, La Castellana Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office head, said.
He said it has been becoming difficult to convince the evacuees to remain in the evacuation centers.
La Castellana Mayor Añejo Nicor convened an IMT emergency meeting on Monday to address the problem.
The IDPs left their evacuation camp without permission or consent of the La Castellana municipal government and the IMT, de Asis said. *