Belch of a Killer

Lake Taal is a pleasant all-day-picnic's drive from Manila. Taal's waters are clear and blue, and in its center rises a 984-ft.-high island, which has its own interior lake, Lake Bonbon. To tourists, Bonbon provides a particular thrill--a look into the eye of a giant killer. For the island in Taal is, in fact, the shell of a volcano, and Lake Bonbon its submerged core, the result of a mighty eruption in 1911 that killed 1,335 people. Since that holocaust, Taal had hardly bubbled out a smoke ring, and some 2,000 Filipinos in four villages made its slopes home.

One night last week, the giant awoke with a roar. Rock and mud, steam and magma belched from its 44-mile-deep core. Two villages vanished under a newly created lagoon nearly a mile long. Orange lava licked its way down the southern slopes of Taal, on top of roof-deep mud and ash.

In the first shock of disaster, it was feared that as many as 2,000 might have perished. Refugee camps were hurriedly set up, and President Diosdado Macapagal left his own birthday party to supervise rescue operations. How many victims Taal had claimed this time might not be known for months, if ever. In the first three days, 25 bodies were found.

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