Students meet under trees as schools shelter villagers displaced by Philippine volcano

MALILIPOT, Philippines (AP) — Nearly 20,000 people have fled from an erupting Philippine volcano and taken shelter in schools, disrupting education for thousands of students, many of whom are having classes in chapels and tents or under trees, officials said Friday.

The Mayon volcano in northeastern Albay province, one of the deadliest of 24 active volcanoes across the Philippine archipelago, began expelling lava late Sunday in a gentle eruption that has not caused any injuries or death. But it could drag on for months and cause a prolonged humanitarian crisis, officials warned.

Most of those forced to evacuate live in farming villages within a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius of the volcano’s crater that has long been designated as a permanent danger zone but has been home to thriving communities for generations.

The evacuees were directed to more than 20 emergency shelters, which are mostly grade and high school campuses. Every classroom has turned into an overcrowded sanctuary for several families with sleeping mats, bags of clothes, cooking stoves and toys for children.

More than 17,000 students in five Albay towns are among affected by the displacements for the eruption. About 80% are continuing their daily school lessons through an emergency system in which parents teach their children at home or elsewhere using school-provided “learning modules,” said Alvin Cruz of the Department of Education in Albay.

The temporary distant-learning approach for students was extensively used during the two years of the coronavirus pandemic, when most of the Philippines was under police-enforced quarantine that restricted people to their homes.

“We came from the pandemic and the learning loss was grave, and now we have the Mayon