A Steinbach resident is fearing for her family that lives near a volcano in the Philippines that became violent earlier this week.

The Taal volcano, located 65 kilometers from Manila, first erupted on Sunday spewing ash and volcanic lightning into the sky. Zero people have been reported dead from this incident but many have been forced to evacuate their homes.

explosion, as many are anticipating, would throw more ash into the air and could easily cause medical problems for her parents.

“My dad has asthma, my mom has heart problems, and they both have hypertension,” she shares, “It is already polluted in Manila and when you add falling ash into it… an eruption would affect my family.”

Odiaz admits that she does not fully understand the science behind the tectonic plates causing this sudden volatility underneath the Taal Volcano, but she does know those same movements could trigger ongoing earthquakes or volcanic tsunamis.

“That’s why we moved to Manitoba”, she notes, in a brief moment of lightheartedness, “we were tired of natural disasters.”

As Odiaz understands it, the Taal volcano also erupted in 1977 and 1911. The latter killed around 1,300 people. Odiaz is concerned, along with many others, that the continued tremors beneath the volcanic crust indicate that the worst has not yet come.

Meanwhile, the SouthEastman Filipino Association out of Steinbach says roughly 4,850 families have not been as lucky as Odiaz' parents and have been forced from their homes. SEMFA has begun a local fundraiser to help sustain relief efforts in the Province of Batangas where the volcanic activity is taking place. 

Odiaz is worried a larger explosion would carry similar blankets of ash all of the way to Manila.