Volcano eruption in the Philippines sends ash miles into the air

A volcano in the central Philippines erupted early Tuesday morning, sending a plume of ash about 2.5 miles into the sky and forcing authorities to suspend school in four villages due to ashfall.

The area on the island of Negros around Kanlaon Volcano, one of 24 active volcanoes in the Southeast Asian nation, was still under evacuation orders from an eruption in December.

There were no reports of injuries or damage from Tuesday's eruption that scattered ash in at least four farming villages, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

The agency said in a statement that the "explosive eruption" started at 5:51 a.m. local time.

The volcano produced "a voluminous bent plume approximately 4,000 meters tall that is drifting southwest," it said.

The eruption stopped at 6:47 a.m. (6:47 p.m. EDT Monday), the institute reported later.

Videos posted on social media showed a wide, billowing plume of smoke slowly stretching into the sky.

"We were prepared for the eruption. The families within the 4 to 6 kilometers (about 2.5 miles to about 3.7 miles) were already evacuated during the previous eruption last December," John De Asis, a rescue official in Negros Occidental province's La Castellana municipality, told French news agency AFP.

Channel Nicor, 22, said she was waiting for a bus to take her to school when the eruption struck.

"The sound seemed like a big rock had fallen from a high place, then I looked up and saw the (ash cloud) getting bigger and bigger from the volcano," she told AFP.

"When I saw the ash of course I felt nervous, but not as nervous as the previous eruption, because this time we know what to do," she said.

The level three alert — out of a scale of five — put in place during December's eruption, remained unchanged.

Ben Edwards, a professor of geosciences at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, said on "CBS Evening News Plus" Monday that eruptions around the world are almost daily occurrences.

"The Earth is made of tectonic plates, and at the edges of the plates are where all the activity happens mostly, that's where there are earthquakes, that's where there are volcanoes and other things, and so in a general sense, all of that activity is related to the fact that we live on a active planet where literally the surface of the planet under your feet is moving essentially every day, but very, very slowly," Edwards said.

In September, hundreds of nearby residents were evacuated after Kanlaon spurted thousands of tons of harmful gases in a single day.

In 1996, three hikers were killed near the peak and several others were later rescued when Kanlaon erupted without warning, officials said then.

Where is Kanlaon Volcano located in the Philippines?

The volcano is located in the central part of the Philippines, which is in the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms a year, making it one of the world's most disaster-prone countries.

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