Word: camiguin
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About 70 miles to the south, on the tiny island of Camiguin in the Mindanao Sea, a violent earthquake warned natives that towering Hibok-Hibok might be preparing for another eruption. Last December its molten lava and deadly gases killed hundreds of Camiguenos (TIME, Dec. 17). Now, after the earthquake, a reddish glow in the sky above the volcano is an almost sure sign that the lava has again boiled close to the rim of the crater...
Over the centuries, Camiguin's craters benevolently poured forth soil-enriching lava which made the island abundant beyond the asking. But in periodic moments of ire, the volcanoes visited havoc and death on the people-always, said the elders, because God had been displeased by younger Camiguenos who grew lax in their churchgoing, forgetful of the feast days and neglectful of the sign of the cross. When his children did wrong, an elder would glance fearfully toward the horizon and mutter, "The volcano will get angry...
Grey Path. Twice in recent years, Camiguin's biggest active volcano, a many-cratered, 5,620-ft. monster named Hibok-Hibok (Visayan for hot and bubbling), had gotten angry-once in 1948, again in 1950 when 68 islanders were killed. Always Hibok-Hibok gave warning-two or three days of ominous huffing & puffing that gave Camiguenos time to retreat to safer reaches of the island, or even to take boats to Mindanao, seven miles to the south...
Early one morning last week, Hibok-Hibok got angry again. This time it gave no warning. With a quaking blast it heaved its sulphurous stomach, tossed red-hot boulders bigger than a man across the northeastern portion of Camiguin, sent up clouds of red-hot ash and deadly chlorine. A torrent of glowing molten lava rolled in all directions. Three and a half miles away in Mambajao (pop. 21,000), the island's capital and largest village, children on the way to school, women washing clothes, men on the way to their fields were buried in the rush...
...people on this island are fanatics," exclaimed 24-year-old Lucino Balili, who was saying farewell to Camiguin. "This is not God's punishment. It is the work of the devil himself...