The major eruption of Mayon volcano that was expected in the Phillipines hasn’t happened, but other volcanoes are causing chaos elsewhere.

Hundreds of people living near Mayon were evacuated, but the volcano failed to produce the big eruption feared. Although things haven’t completely quietened down yet.

Meanwhile, in the Congo Mount Nyamulagira erupted, prompting the UN to step in to monitor lava flow from the air. The worry about the mountain is not that it will affect the people of the town Goma, some 40 kilometres away, who seem to be safe so far, but the more pressing threat of damaging the Virunga national park and its wildlife (BBC).

The volcano also lies near to another, Mount Nyiragongo which threatens to disturb a lake full of dangerous gasses if it erupts (see “A lakeful of trouble”).

And over in Colombia the volcano Galeras has erupted magnificently spewing ash reportedly 12 kilometres high. Some 8000 people living in the vicinity have been evacuated. The alert level in the area has been brought down to orange from red since the eruption on Saturday.

The excellent blog Eruptions has regular updates on all the volcanoes, highly recommended reading.

Image: Mayon on December 15 2009, from NASA