Three years into a volcanic crisis that has upended life across Albay province, tens of thousands of Filipino families are still sleeping in converted classrooms, gymnasiums, and makeshift shelters while Mayon Volcano continues to send lava and superheated debris down its flanks. Government tallies compiled since mid-2023 put the cumulative number of displaced residents at nearly 290,000, a figure that reflects repeated rounds of evacuation as the volcano’s activity has surged, paused, and surged again. As of May 2026, the eruption shows no sign of stopping.
A volcano that will not quiet down
Mayon’s current eruptive sequence traces back to at least June 2023, when the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) raised alert levels and ordered evacuations from communities on the volcano’s slopes. Since then, the agency has never fully stood down. Satellite imagery analyzed by the NASA Earth Observatory confirms that a fresh active phase began in January 2026, with Landsat thermal data capturing lava flows and ash deposits on Mayon’s flanks through at least late February.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program corroborated the ongoing activity in a Volcanic Activity Report dated May 8, 2026. Drawing on PHIVOLCS field data, the report documents sustained lava effusion and pyroclastic flows still occurring as of early May. That means the 2026 phase alone has already lasted more than four months, layered on top of nearly three years of recurring unrest.
Mayon has erupted more than 50 times since Spanish-era records began in the early 1600s, but few episodes have matched the duration of the current sequence. Whether measured from the 2023 escalation or the January 2026 resurgence, the volcano’s sustained output of lava and pyroclastic material places this among the longest periods of continuous volcanic unrest in its recorded history.
The threat on the ground
The greatest danger comes not from the lava itself but from what happens when it collapses. PHIVOLCS director Teresito Bacolcol has described how unstable lava deposits on Mayon’s steep upper slopes break apart and generate pyroclastic density currents, superheated avalanches of gas, ash, and rock fragments that barrel downhill at speeds that leave almost no time to react. According to Associated Press reporting, Bacolcol emphasized that these collapse-driven flows are the primary hazard for communities in the municipalities ringing the volcano, including Camalig, Guinobatan, Daraga, and Santo Domingo.
The same AP coverage documented nearly 200,000 people affected by the eruption and more than 5,400 who fled ashfall events during one reporting period. A local mayor described ash thick enough to cut road visibility to near zero, a detail that illustrates how the eruption disrupts transportation, agriculture, and commerce well beyond the formal danger zone. Albay’s abaca farms, a key source of income in the province, sit within the ash-fall radius, and schools pressed into service as evacuation centers have been unable to hold regular classes for months at a stretch.
Displacement without an end date
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has issued a long chain of situational reports tracking evacuations, shelter populations, and relief operations. By December 2023 alone, the agency had published at least 95 official updates. The cumulative displacement figure of nearly 290,000 is drawn from those ongoing government tallies, though it likely includes families counted more than once after cycling through multiple evacuations. A single-snapshot census confirming the exact number at any one moment has not appeared in publicly available documents.
What the numbers cannot capture is the texture of life inside the shelters. Families who first evacuated in 2023 have watched children miss school terms, seen small businesses collapse, and returned home between eruption pulses only to pack bags again when PHIVOLCS raised the alert. Local officials have warned about “evacuation fatigue,” a growing reluctance among residents to leave their homes each time sirens sound, even when pyroclastic flows threaten their barangays. No systematic survey quantifying how many people are choosing to stay in or near danger zones despite warnings has been published, but anecdotal accounts from relief workers suggest the problem is worsening.
What scientists are watching next
The Smithsonian and NASA data confirm that Mayon’s current behavior is primarily effusive: lava pushes steadily from the summit crater, builds unstable deposits, and periodically collapses into pyroclastic flows. That pattern is less immediately catastrophic than a large explosive eruption, but volcanologists caution that effusive phases can shift. Changes in gas emission rates, deep seismic swarms, or ground deformation could signal a transition toward more explosive activity.
None of the publicly available reports from PHIVOLCS, NASA, or the Smithsonian include detailed effusion-rate measurements or volumetric estimates of the lava and pyroclastic deposits. Those figures, typically derived from ground-based surveys or specialized radar, would help scientists gauge whether the eruption is winding down or building pressure. Their absence from public bulletins means outside observers are working with an incomplete picture.
For now, PHIVOLCS has not lowered Mayon’s alert level, and no official timeline for a potential downgrade has been announced. Until that happens, the permanent and extended danger zones around the volcano remain off-limits, and the shelters of Albay will stay full.
A province caught between the volcano and the calendar
Albay’s crisis is defined by its grinding duration as much as by any single dramatic event. The province has not experienced a sudden, headline-grabbing catastrophe so much as a slow accumulation of disrupted lives: farmers locked out of fields, children educated in shifts inside evacuation centers, and local governments stretching relief budgets originally planned for weeks across years. International aid organizations have provided intermittent support, but the bulk of the response has fallen on Philippine national and provincial agencies operating under sustained strain.
The strongest available evidence, drawn from satellite imagery, institutional volcano monitoring, and government disaster reports, points to a consistent conclusion: Mayon remains in an active eruptive state with documented lava flows and pyroclastic density currents continuing into May 2026, tens of thousands of people are still displaced, and the cumulative toll on Albay’s communities is still growing. Until the volcano quiets and PHIVOLCS formally signals that residents can return, this remains one of the Philippines’ longest-running displacement emergencies in recent memory.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
