It’s a year since geo­sci­en­tists pre­dict­ed an im­mi­nent erup­tion of the Pi­paro mud vol­cano, spurring na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts to ham­mer out an evac­u­a­tion plan com­plete with drills.

But the erup­tion has not oc­curred and res­i­dents re­main fear­ful that the pro­longed si­lence may well be the pre­cur­sor to a pow­er­ful erup­tion.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the vol­cano on Wednes­day, there was si­lence ex­cept for the roar of the wind. Res­i­dents said dur­ing heavy rain­fall, the vol­cano belch­es spurts of gas and blasts re­sem­bling gun­shots.

Lar­ry Joseph said he was dis­ap­point­ed that no mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems were in­stalled at the vol­cano to warn the res­i­dents of the dan­ger. Say­ing the vol­cano was be­ing treat­ed as a joke, Joseph said, “In my yard, I showed them gas com­ing up es­pe­cial­ly when the rain falls. We just look­ing on right now. In the mean­time the cracks are con­tin­u­ing to widen,” Joseph said.

Shan­shudeen Ho­sein be­lieves that the vol­cano was be­ing used to gain po­lit­i­cal points.

“I don’t feel good about this. No­body in this gov­ern­ment at this mo­ment is seek­ing our in­ter­est. The on­ly thing we ask for and we get were two lights that they in­stalled there,” he said. 

He added, “We need the of­fi­cials in au­thor­i­ty to come here. Right now the vol­cano’s sul­phur is run­ning down in­to the land and we can­not plant any pro­duce. Noth­ing can grow.”

He not­ed that the roads were in a de­plorable con­di­tion.

“If some­thing were to hap­pen how could we get in and out of Pi­paro? They came for elec­tions and throw boul­ders in the road. They promised hot mix, we nev­er even get that,” Ho­sein added. 

Fi­del Solomon, whose home had splin­tered from the vol­canic move­ments, last year, said the area re­mains un­safe but they had no choice but to con­tin­ue liv­ing there.

“We sup­posed to get some mon­i­tors since last Sep­tem­ber, a year now but noth­ing re­al­ly hap­pened,” Solomon said.

He ex­plained, “The vol­cano every hour you will hear a loud boom com­ing from the mouth, nois­es in the back. The move­ments in the land haven’t stopped,” Solomon said.

He called on the au­thor­i­ties to look in­to the plight of the vil­lagers.

“We can­not leave. They said it is un­safe here but a year lat­er, we still here. The mon­i­tors would help us to be pre­pared and a year lat­er we have noth­ing and nowhere to go. We wait­ing still,” Solomon said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, a se­nior geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Xavier Moo­nan con­firmed that no mon­i­tor­ing was tak­ing place.

“No fund­ing was giv­en so no equip­ment could be bought so no mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems could be in­stalled,” Moo­nan said. He added, “The vol­cano has gone ‘qui­et’ for some time now and there is very lit­tle sub­si­dence. The ‘be­hav­iour’ of the mud vol­cano now is no longer fol­low­ing the gen­er­al se­quence of events that led to the 1997 erup­tion.”

He added, “With­out any fur­ther sci­en­tif­ic means of ob­serv­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the vol­cano, as a ge­ol­o­gist, we can now cau­tious­ly say that a threat of erup­tion has dis­si­pat­ed, but please keep in mind that we have very lit­tle hard da­ta to draw such a con­clu­sion.”

He said it was im­por­tant for res­i­dents to be sen­si­tised.

“Pe­tro­le­um geo­science will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor with­in our means, and when we get equip­ment and re­sources we will con­tin­ue to en­gage,” Moo­nan said.

He not­ed that Pi­paro is still ‘due or over­due’ for a big erup­tion. 

“Ac­tiv­i­ty can quick­ly height­en af­ter earth­quakes or pe­ri­ods of sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall,” he not­ed. 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein said no equip­ment was pro­cured by his Min­istry as this was out­side of his purview.

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young proved fu­tile as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered and he did not re­spond to What­sApp mes­sages.