Nearly 50,000 Filipinos evacuated from their homes in the shadow of the Mount Mayon volcano will receive some holiday cheer from WFP on Thursday, when packages of high energy biscuits arrive in evacuation centres set up by the government.
MANILA - WFP has sent a total of 20 metric tons of high energy biscuits to assist people forced to leave their homes by the Mount Mayon volcano in the northern Philippine island of Luzon. The biscuits, packed with vitamins and energy, will nourish refugees living in temporary shelters (schools and government buildings).
On 20 December the Government declared Alert Level 4, meaning that a hazardous eruption of the volcano is possible within days. As part of the country's emergency preparedness plan, families have been evacuated from the immediate vicinity of the volcano.
The awakening of the Mayon volcano comes only a few months after the Philippines was hit by a series of typhoons which left over 200 people dead and hundreds of thousands more surrounded by floodwater. WFP assisted the government in dealing with that emergency, providing rice and high energy biscuits to displaced people.