Res­i­dents are be­ing urged to re­main vig­i­lant, pre­pare and keep com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the var­i­ous agen­cies as the Pi­paro mud vol­cano con­tin­ues to show signs of an im­pend­ing erup­tion.

At an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing, se­nior geo­sci­en­tist Xavier Moo­nan told vil­lagers based on the re­sults of the seis­mic to­mog­ra­phy sur­veys they have been con­duct­ing at the vol­cano: “It is not look­ing good.”

“We can’t say ex­act­ly when (the vol­cano will erupt),” Moo­nan told vil­lagers on Sat­ur­day.

Since the vol­cano be­gan show­ing in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty last month, re­sult­ing in ex­ten­sive dam­age to at least one home, he said the frac­tures have con­tin­ued to widen.

“What we are see­ing is that the area is still sub­sid­ing,” he said, adding that there has been a lot of rain­fall that would have made the area more sat­u­rat­ed which in­creas­es the risk of it erupt­ing.

Rod­ney Smart, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), as­sured vil­lagers that all the stake­hold­ers are de­vel­op­ing an emer­gency re­sponse plan.

ODPM’s An­war Baksh as­sured res­i­dents that the po­lice have giv­en the as­sur­ance that they will re­main in charge of se­cu­ri­ty of their homes in the event that they have to evac­u­ate the area.

De­spite the im­pend­ing dan­ger, res­i­dent Lat­i­foon Ho­sein said leav­ing their home will be the last re­sort.

She re­called that when the last ma­jor erup­tion oc­curred in 1997 res­i­dents ex­pe­ri­enced more theft at their home rather than dam­age.

Ho­sein said they are more much pre­pared and in­formed than be­fore.

How­ev­er, she said res­i­dents have been hav­ing sleep­less nights. They have been hear­ing fre­quent rum­blings from the vol­cano and more cracks are ap­pear­ing on res­i­dents’ prop­er­ties.

“Up to this morn­ing, loud nois­es were com­ing from the vol­cano.”

She said the res­i­dents were tak­ing turns in keep­ing vig­il in the event that the vol­cano erupts.

The vil­lagers al­so re­quest­ed lights at the site so they could see if any ac­tiv­i­ty was tak­ing place in the night.