25,000 pray for halt to eruptions

AN estimated 25,000 victims of lahars - volcanic mudflows - held a marathon prayer meeting in a dry river bed near Mount Pinatubo yesterday seeking divine intervention to stop the outflow which has killed a dozen people and swallowed up several villages.

The meeting was organised by the Association of Lahar Affected Municipalities and headed by a group of Catholic priests whose parishes have been engulfed by three years of intermittent volcanic eruptions.

'We had two hours of non-stop prayers to ask God to solve the crisis, and we hope that they were also heard by the Government, so that it can come up with some solution to save us from further onslaught,' an association spokesman said.

The prayer marathon was convened on the bed of the lahar-filled Pasig-Potrero river, in a section of Pampanga province where only the rooftops of three-storey buildings and a church steeple are still visible above the four to five-metre mantle of lahar.

The rest of the province, covered in a sea of grey volcanic ash, has been described by the lahar victims as a 'moonscape'.

On September 20, a similar rally of about 25,000 people marched through Pampanga province to demand immediate government measures to resolve the emergency situation, which has left thousands of people homeless.