As at 5 pm on 15 January 2020, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) reported that Taal volcano’s eruption is still going on and retained the Alert Level for Taal at 4 (hazardous eruption imminent), where further eruptions are likely to occur in the coming hours or days.
As at 1 pm on 14 January 2020, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) retained the Alert Level for Taal volcano at 4 (hazardous eruption imminent), which means that further eruptions are likely in the coming hours or days.
A continuous eruption from Philippines’ Taal volcano was observed on Sunday, 12 January 2020, at 5.30 pm (Singapore time). The powerful eruption sent an ash plume 10-15 kilometres (km) into the atmosphere and ashfall as far as Quezon city 65 km away, with volcanic lightning seen flickering continuously in the plume above the volcano.
Located high in the mountains are structures called “mountain huts” that provide refuge and safety to those who are in need of food and shelter. However, because of their location, these life-saving shelters are highly vulnerable to the projectiles from nearby erupting volcanoes.
Just after 6pm on 28 September 2018 (Singapore time), a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck central Sulawesi. The powerful quake generated a tsunami which, along with massive landslides, devastated Palu and the town of Donggala. These resulted in more than 4,000 people dead or missing.
During the early evening of 28 September 2018, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck along the coast of northwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia. This region hosts a famous strike-slip fault system called the Palu-Koro Fault.
On 5 July 2019 at 1.33am (Singapore time), a Mw 6.4 earthquake struck the town of Ridgecrest in California. Its seismic waves could be felt from Los Angeles to San Jose. Nearly a day and a half later, on 6 July at 11.19am (Singapore time), a more powerful Mw 7.1 quake struck the same region. Because the Mw 7.1 earthquake is the largest event so far in this sequence, it is considered to be the mainshock. The events leading up to it, which include the Mw 6.4 quake, are considered to be foreshocks.
Social media has found itself a heavyweight role in geology. By scraping Twitter and mining text data in Tweets, scientists at the Nanyang Technological University can now track where volcanic ash has fallen. This breakthrough won Assistant Professor Benoit Taisne and Professor Gao Cong the Accelerating Creativity and Excellence (ACE) Award for their research project titled “Detecting and Tracking Volcanic Ash Using Social Media Data”.
