A magnitude 4.4 quake hit offshore early Monday morning. El Salvador was devastated by two temblors in January and February, which killed 1,200 people and left more than a million others homeless. The Geotechnical Research Center has since recorded at least 9,000 aftershocks and tremors. Volcanologists reported that Mayon had experienced a partial collapse of its lava dome, which had opened a gash from which lava was flowing. Scientists at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said that numerous ground vibrations caused by boulders rolling out of the lava dome and tremors associated with lava movement had also been detected at the site.
Officials consider the threat of violent eruption to be at a level three on a scale of one to five.
If activity at Mayon had intensified on Monday, it could have disrupted national and local elections. People living close to the volcano are typically evacuated to the nearby schools which were used as polling precincts in the elections that ended Monday afternoon. Mayon last erupted in February 2000, forcing 68,000 people from their homes. Caterpillars Ravaging Cameroon Coffee A plague of caterpillars is devastating crops in coffee plantations and small farms throughout Cameroon's Eastern and Southern Provinces. Not a single green plant is spared, from bananas to cocoyams to groundnuts.