90,000 flee Philippine volcano stretching relief camps

LEGAZPI (Philippines), Jan 29 (AFP): The number of Filipinos fleeing from the erupting Mayon volcano to safe zones has swelled to nearly 90,000, officials said Monday, worsening a sanitation crisis in the already stretched relief camps.

President Rodrigo Duterte flew to the central city of Legazpi on Monday to assess the disaster zone, some two weeks after the country's most active volcano began belching spectacular but potentially lethal ash columns, lava and rocks.

Authorities have thrown a nine kilometre (5.6 mile) no-go zone around the mountain with the vast majority of those living in its shadow now safely outside that radius. But sanitary conditions in the safe-zones are far from ideal. Al Francis Bichara, the governor of Albay province, said authorities expect the evacuees will need to stay at the camps for at least a month.