As a result, Alcaraz and the other returning Filipino scholars were stranded in Tokyo after the ship failed to continue to the Philippines, which was a territory of the United States at that time.
[1] In 1948, Alcaraz received a grant from the United States Government under the postwar Rehabilitation Act to study microseismology at the Opa-locka Naval Air Station in Florida.
[1][4] He was also awarded a Colombo Plan Fellowship and took a three-month training course on geothermal energy at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.
In 1943, Maximo Lachica, the Director of the Philippine Weather Bureau, offered him the post of Chief Geophysicist.
After the Allied victory in the Battle of Manila, Alcaraz took leave from the Weather Bureau and did a few months of volunteer work as a civilian engineer for the U.S. Army and surveyed the Port Area for clearing and rebuilding.
In December 1951, Mount Hibok-Hibok in Camiguin released a nuée ardente (burning cloud of hot ash and gas) which resulted in 600 deaths.