There are only ashes, shells of houses on the island of the volcano

TAAL VOLCANO, Philippines (AP) – The island is a ghost town, its trees are only left dead in a gray landscape, its houses and school are covered in ash and damaged by continuous earthquakes and the explosive volcanic eruption that occurred a year ago.

Fisherman Rogelito Cacao regularly visits his home on the volcanic island south of the Philippine capital. “I miss our belongings, but now it’s covered in ash, our cattle like our cow, our horse, our pig, our boat and the engines are covered by the volcano, that’s what I miss.”

Luisa Silva lived at the foot of the Taal volcano and said that life will never be the same. “Right now life is very hard, we are not used to it. This is where we have experienced things we had never experienced before, we don’t know where to start, ”he said.

Silva wants to return to the island if the government allows it. He said they can grow vegetables and raise livestock on their island homes, preventing them from needing to buy food. Their animals also took tourists to see the picturesque crater.

Taal, a popular tourist destination located in the middle of a lake, erupted on January 12, 2020.

More than 5,000 people, many of them working as tour guides, fled the small island as the ground shook and the volcano shot ash and dark gray smoke into the sky. Hundreds of horses, cows and other animals remained.

The eruption caused an early crisis in what would become a tough year in one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world. A couple of months after the volcano sent more than 376,000 people fleeing to safety, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.

Many evacuees remained for a time in state-run emergency shelters and then returned to the ash-covered villages and towns of Batangas province as the dangers diminished.

But the volcanic island of Lake Taal is too dangerous and the government bans the return of former residents.

Some have found other homes, but about 50 families still live in tents a year after the eruption and resort to strange jobs. The head of the village of Calauit, Jimmy Tenorio, said the rest of the families living in tents will move soon.

Meanwhile, Taal is still stirring, with small earthquakes and faint feathers of steam coming out of the crater on Monday.