About 24,000 families, roughly 94,000 people, have been affected by ash from Mount Kanlaon on Negros Island in the central Philippines, according to the Office of Civil Defence. The tally was given on Monday, October 12, 2026, by the office’s spokesperson, Junie Castillo, at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon briefing. It counts people touched by ash emissions, and it is a much wider circle than the people who have actually left their homes.
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That second number is far smaller. Of the 24,000 families, about 2,500 families, nearly 8,000 people, were sheltering in 21 evacuation sites as of the same briefing, and Castillo said the figure had not changed. The gap between the two counts is the story: most of the families in the tally are living under the ash fall at home, not in a shelter.
How the Office of Civil Defence reached 24,000 families
The figure was first carried by the news agency Xinhua and published by The Star in Malaysia on October 13, and the same numbers appear in a GMA News report that names Castillo as the source. Both describe the people as affected rather than displaced. Neither names the towns or barangays included in the count, which means the 94,000 cannot be broken down by municipality from the public reporting.
The same briefing carried PHIVOLCS as well, where Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, known as PHIVOLCS, covered the volcanic side of the picture. The two agencies divide the labour: PHIVOLCS watches the mountain and sets the alert level, and the Office of Civil Defence counts the households that its activity touches.
The distinction between affected and displaced decides what help is needed. A displaced family needs a roof, food and sanitation at a site such as the 21 now open on the island. A family that is affected but at home needs ash cleanup, masks, clean water and information about when conditions might worsen. The Office of Civil Defence tally gives only the first of those two populations a precise shelter count, and the 94,000 figure is the broader group that planners have to think about.
Ash episodes and the two evacuation lines
The count was still being built while the ash kept falling. PHIVOLCS logged eight ash emission episodes on Sunday, October 11, and at least five by Monday, October 12. The most recent one in the GMA account ran from 5:45 a.m. to 7:24 a.m., lasted about 1 hour and 39 minutes, and sent a plume 300 metres above the crater that drifted northwest. Kanlaon remained at Alert Level 2 on the five-level scale, and PHIVOLCS said another explosive eruption was possible.
Two distances matter for the families in the tally. PHIVOLCS said the 4-kilometre permanent danger zone around the summit must stay evacuated, and that communities within 6 kilometres should remain vigilant and prepared in case the alert is raised to Level 3. Those lines are guidance about where people may not live and where they must be ready to move. The 24,000-family figure is wider than both, covering households that ash reached whether or not they sit inside either boundary.
What PHIVOLCS tells residents breathing the ash
The agency’s advice for people exposed to ashfall is practical. According to the GMA report, residents should stay indoors with windows and doors closed during ashfall, and anyone who must go outside should wear a well-fitting N95 mask and eye protection. A surgical mask or a damp towel can be used if no N95 is available. PHIVOLCS also listed the hazards communities near the volcano face if explosive eruptions recur: ashfall, volcanic gases, pyroclastic density currents and ballistic projectiles.
The advice makes the scale of the tally concrete. Most of the families counted among the 24,000 are not in evacuation sites, so the guidance reaches them where they live: indoors, with openings closed, and protected by a mask when they have to go out. That is a different humanitarian problem from sheltering evacuees, and the affected-population number captures it better than the evacuation count does.
Earlier counts around Kanlaon
The volcano has produced bigger evacuation numbers before. A January 2025 report in Negros Now put the affected population at 12,223 families, or 46,781 individuals, with 4,128 families in 34 evacuation centers, at a time when the volcano was at Alert Level 3. The 2026 tally of about 24,000 families is roughly double that affected count, at a lower alert level and with far fewer people in shelters.
Kanlaon has also disrupted schooling. A Philstar report in March reported that a Kanlaon eruption had affected 126,572 students, and the Tribune reported on August 22 that the Office of Civil Defence was warning of potential ash fall from a Kanlaon emission. The October count is the latest in a series in which the Office of Civil Defence has had to tally the people around this mountain, each time measuring a different group: the affected, the sheltered, the students.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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