A volcano in the Philippines has been shuddering continuously with earthquakes and opening cracks in nearby roads as police blockaded at-risk towns over fears of a bigger eruption.
More than 53,000 residents have fled their homes in the vicinity of the Taal volcano to take shelter in evacuation centres, though thousands more have refused to leave or have returned to check on their animals and possessions.
Many houses and farms have been damaged by volcanic ash since Taal, one of the country’s most active and deadliest volcanoes, began spewing lava and ash on Sunday.
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Here's John Dan Ramos' account of escaping the ash plume from nearby Talisay, where he was attending a wedding.
It was 3am when I saw the lava erupting from the Taal volcano. Tensions grew and some guests broke down and cried. Others considered abandoning their cars and escaping by foot instead, but it was too dark and cold outside. There was still ash falling and the mud was thickening. We began to lose hope of going home.
Those were the longest hours of our lives. At 5am, we all felt the strongest quake yet. The chandeliers clanged and the glass window almost shattered. The children were in tears. We knew it was no longer safe to stay in the area. We went outside and began to clean the debris off the cars using a high-pressured water hose.
More below:
When the Taal volcano erupted, I was at a wedding — then we were trapped
The roads were blocked by thick volcanic ash and the air was filled with the choking smell of gunpowder. Earthquakes shook every 30 minutes and I pleaded with Twitter to find us a rescuerEarlier we mentioned Rosalina Mantuano - the 61-year-old seamstress who turned her talents to creating face masks after prices for medical masks from private companies surged at a time of need for people around lake Taal.
Here she is on video talking about her decision to devote herself to hand-crafting the breathing aids for hundreds of people:
A dog has been rescued by charity workers looking for animal survivors of the eruption.
Palakitik came "running up through the ash" when workers from Peta Asia arrived on the island on Wednesday.
The dog was well known to Peta staff from previous work they had done on the island, providing veterinary services to horses.
Peta said: "Whenever our boats arrive there, we call for her and she always excitedly scampers up to greet us and follows our team around everywhere."
Although residents of the island were moved to safety when the volcano began to erupt on Sunday, many animals remained.
Peta workers arrived for the first time since the eruption on Wednesday and were unsure whether or not Palakitik was still alive.
Mark Bidder, the head of office for the UN’s humanitarian work in the region, said his team is anxious for a full evacuation to be carried out as soon as possible amid concern of a potentially cataclysmic eruption taking place in coming days or weeks.
He said: “Currently the situation is that the volcano is still erupting.
“The government continues to evacuate people away from the danger area this is an ongoing operation because it is hampered by the conditions and the risks.
“So far approximately 50,000 or more people have been moved to safer locations but there are still many who are left behind so this continues”.
Among the places that are being set up as temporary homes for evacuees is Dona Tiburcia Carpio Malvar Elementary School to the north west of Tanauan - roughly 20km from the volcano.
Here are some photos from the scene:
Footage of the volcano taken by drone has shown the landscape surrounding the Taal volcano has been irreversibly changed by the days of eruptions to have emanated from the fissure.
Captured by drone, the video from Raffy Tima of national media outlet GMA News shows the ground around the centre of the volcano still smoldering, five days on from its first eruption.
Manny Pacquiao - one of the Philippine's most famous figures - has appealed for financial support for those struggling in the wake of the eruption.
Considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Mr Pacquiao has served as a senator in the country since 2016.
Now in a video he has told fellow citizens he will match any donation made to help those in need, adding "our lives are short - we will leave those things behind when we pass from this world. Let's do all that we can to help others - that's what matters not the material things of this world".
President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is satisfied with the work of the nation's Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) according to his official spokesperson, following criticism from politicians in the country over the lack of government updates before Taal's eruption.
Salvador Panelo assured reporters in the country the executive had absolute faith in the body's director Renato Solidum - however noted the the presidential palace had no ability to intervene if congress wished to proceed with an investigation into the agency in the lead up to the natural disaster.
"That's up to them" , Mr Panelo told broadcaster ABS-CBN news. "We cannot stop them, discourage them".
It follows comments from the often outspoken president himself on Wednesday, who said he was " very satisfied with the response of everybody and the fact that no one was killed and no one is really very sick".
"We have a seeming lull, but, again, as we emphasized earlier, there is something different happening beneath the volcano," Antonio Bornas of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has said, citing continued tremors, steaming and other signs of magma movement.
Renato Solidum, who heads the institute, said it may take up to two weeks for experts to assess whether the volcano's restiveness has eased.
The Taal area has remained just a notch down from the highest level of a five-step alert system the institute uses to warn the public of a volcano's danger.
"For now, we endure, we live with nothing," said Ferdinand Paderan, 39, who evacuated with his wife and two children.
But even as thousands more people were being evacuated from the danger zone, some defied official warnings to head back in to collect belongings or tend livestock that they could not bring out.
"I went home and checked it. It's a good thing no one stopped our tricycle on the way home. I fed the chickens and the dogs," said Leonel Gonzales, 32, a tourist guide at Taal Lake, who fled with his one-year-old daughter and pregnant wife.
"We will stay here to make sure we are all safe. We will check on the pets again when the volcano calms down."
"Don't tell me you're brave. When disaster strikes, you will call on all saints, big or small," Obet Dionglay, 61, who had trekked through roads deep with ash to seek refuge, told Reuters.
Mr Dionglay's hut had been crushed by bamboos bent to the ground by the weight of the ash and he had little hope that his three pigs and dozen chickens would survive.
Mr Dionglay recalled Taal's last eruption in 1977, when his hometown of Talisay had escaped largely unscathed.
Evacuees are wondering how long they will have to wait before finding out whether Taal volcano will devastate the region or fall back into a slumber.
"It's all in God's hands now. We are not sure if we will have a home to return to," Leonita Gonzales, 52, who fled with the rest of her household from the danger zone around Taal, told Reuters.
Her banana palms were destroyed by the ash that fell after the volcano started to gush smoke on Sunday. She is uncertain whether her home's tin roof will be able to bear the weight either.
A 61-year-old seamstress has been sewing dozens of colourful masks and giving them to her neighbours in Lipa city for free.
Rosalina Mantuano, a seamstress for 45 years, began sewing the masks using scrap fabric after the Taal volcano began spewing giant clouds of ash into the air on Sunday.
"As a seamstress, I thought what if I made my own masks and give it away for free to those affected. That is what I did," Ms Mantuano, who makes 100 face masks a day, told Reuters.
Shortly after the eruption, supply of face masks dropped and prices increased to as much as five times the usual price. The Philippine trade ministry has threatened to sue businessmen and shutter their shops for raising prices to unreasonable levels.
Cloth donations poured in when people heard of Ms Manuano's efforts, she said.
She has since received cloth donations, allowing her to produce around 400 more checkered, flowery and striped face masks.
In a firsthand account of escaping from the Taal volcano, John Dan Ramos describes the ground shaking "every 20 to 30 minutes" and says "the air was thick with ashes" that "smelt like a mix of sulfur and gunpowder".
Opinion: I was trapped by ash from the Taal volcano – this is how I escaped
The roads were blocked by thick volcanic ash and the air was filled with the choking smell of gunpowder. Earthquakes shook every 30 minutes and we spent the night fearing for our livesOne horse owner urged authorities to allow the rescue of as many animals as possible, taking advantage of what appeared to be a lull in volcano activity, but was rebuffed by the coast guard patrolling the lake.
Horses were among the more than 70 animals brought to safety since Wednesday by another group of rescuers, led by a police maritime unit, but it has since been told to halt its activities, because of the eruption threat.
Many of the horses that had made it out looked exhausted and hungry, with at least one barely able to stand.
Many islanders depend on the survival of their animals, which often form the sole means of their livelihood.
"We won't have food on our tables if not for them," Jun Despededa, 21, who used water from the lake to scrub volcanic ash from his horse's white coat, told Reuters. "I don't know what I would do now after what happened."
About 1,000 horses, as well as cows, goats and pigs were among the animals left behind by residents scurrying to safer areas for fear of a bigger eruption.
Several local residents have returned to the danger zone around the Taal volcano to rescue the animals they had left behind.
Manolito Malaluan set out on a motorboat with a band of rescuers to ferry to safety two horses to safety on Tuesday.
"Both of them were neighing when they saw me," Mr Malaluan, 23, told Reuters, after reaching safer ground with his horses, named Cristina and Bakasan. "They were happy because I came back."
The horses were among 3,000 living on the island, most earning money for their owners by carrying tourists to the rim of the volcano crater.
There is an "urgent need" for clean water, latrines and access to basic healthcare among the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the volcano, said Jerome Balinton, humanitarian manager for Save the Children Philippines.
Mr Balinton said: “At least 300,000 people have been evacuated or displaced by the Taal volcano since Sunday, nearly half of them children, and we expect that number to rise. Entire towns and villages within the ‘danger zone’ have been abandoned and covered in hazardous volcanic ash. With the volcano island now declared a ‘no-man’s land’ by president Rodrigo Duterte, some 1,000 people who call it home may never be able to return.
“The sudden displacement of so many people is putting enormous strain on host communities. Many families are staying with friends or relatives while others are seeking refuge in cramped and unsanitary evacuation centres where the risk of disease is high, especially among children. There is urgent need for clean water, latrines and access to basic healthcare.
“Meanwhile, the volcano continues to erupt with scientists warning that the biggest eruption may be yet to come. Entire communities, many of whom rely on tourism, have already been devastated, forced from their homes and now robbed of their livelihoods.
“The children we’ve spoken to tell us that missing out on school is one of their biggest concerns. Save the Children is setting up two Child-Friendly Spaces in the affected areas staffed by childcare professionals, where children can learn and play while receiving emotional support to help them cope with their distress. We will also begin distributing sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets and other vital household items to displaced families.”
A farmer has described the scene of devastation after ash from the Taal volcano blanketed his pineapple field.
"We just have to accept that we will incur a loss," Jack Imperial, 49, who had never seen such a sight in 17 years of farming, told Reuters. "Even if we are able to harvest some pineapples, if customers are scared to come because of the eruption, the pineapples would just end up rotting."
Pineapple farm covered in volcanic ash in Philippines
Farmer Jack Imperial says eruption's impacts go beyond anything he has ever seenAlthough Taal is one of the world's smallest active volcanoes at only 311m high, its eruptions have been deadly.
One eruption killed more than 1,300 people in 1911.
Taal has erupted more than 30 times in the past five centuries, with the most recent in 1977.
