Tens of thousands of villagers in the Philippines have fled their homes as one of the nation's most active volcanoes spews lava and sends ash plumes high into the sky.
Soldiers and police marshalled the evacuation from the so-called 'danger zone' around the foothills of Mayon volcano, amid concerns a big eruption could occur at any moment.
'After the series of ash puffs and ash explosions of 1,000 metres (high), we cannot rule out a major explosion,' Cedric Daep, the head of the disaster relief operations in the region said.
Mr Daep said the authorities aimed to evacuate nearly 50,000 people from villages within 8km of the volcano by Thursday.
Albay provincial governor Joey Salceda said that nearly 21,000 people had been evacuated already.
'Zero casualties is still the goal of our province,' he told the ABS-CBN network, explaining the huge evacuation well before any eruption.
Some of the residents of the farming villages were carried out on military trucks, while others walked out carrying boxes of belongings on their heads.
Mr Salceda said he wanted a 'state of imminent disaster' to be declared over the province so that special disaster funds could be released to help pay for the evacuation.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level for Mayon to three yesterday after lava was seen spewing from the crater, and evacuations began immediately.
Level three means an eruption is likely in the very near future. The scale runs from one to five, with five meaning an eruption is occurring.
However the volcanology institute also said Mayon could yet calm down without an eruption.
Mayon, which sits above a farming area about 330km southeast of Manila, has erupted 48 times since records began, claiming thousands of lives.
After the most recent eruption in August 2006, huge deposits of volcanic ash were left on its slopes. When typhoon Durian hit the same area in December of that year, it caused a landslide of volcanic ash that killed over 1,000 people.
In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as the lava buried the town of Cagsawa.
However the 2,460m volcano remains a popular tourist attraction, and is famous for its perfect cone.
The Philippines is part of the so-called Pacific 'Ring of Fire' that is known for its volcanic activity. The Philippine volcanology institute lists 22 active volcanoes in the country.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo north of Manila in June 1991 was the world's most violent volcanic eruption of the last century, spewing out ash that spread around the globe and caused volcanic mudflows that buried whole towns.
Over 800 died as a result of that eruption.
