A red alert has been issued for an Alaskan volcano located on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Pavlof Volcano, which has been active for years in releasing smoke, erupted with high intensity sending a plume of ash and smoke over 24,000 feet into the sky. The eruption was so significantly that the Alaska Volcano Observatory issued their first red alert warning since 2009.
The last alert was for Alaska’s Mount Redoubt when an eruption sent a 2009 plume over 50,000 feet into the skies. Scientists believe that the volcano could be active long after the red alert will end.
“This means it can erupt for weeks or even months,” observatory research geologist Michelle Coombs said of the warning. “I don’t think we will be at red for that long, but we are expecting it to go for a while based on its past.”
Scientists say that commercial air traffic has yet to be impacted by the eruption but say that changing weather patterns could cause a serious disruption to flights.
El Salvadoran officials have evacuated thousands of residents from the area around the Chaparrastique volcano out of fears of a major eruption.
The volcano, which has erupted twice in the last six months, reportedly had a major explosion on Monday and reddish ash was seen spewing in the caldera.
The country’s Civil Protection Department has issued an alert for the city of San Miguel, 30 miles from the volcano and one of the largest cities in El Salvador. Over 1,400 residents have been evacuated from the area and more are expected to be forced to leave.
Previous evacuations ahead of anticipated eruptions have kept the volcano from taking any lives.
Hernan Rosa Chavez, El Salvador’s Environment Minister, said that the volcano is experiencing higher levels of activity than during either of the previous two eruptions.
The last time the volcano suffered a major eruption was 1976 and officials fear the increased activity means a major eruption is imminent.
Scientists say that magma is slowing starting to build inside Washington’s Mount St. Helens.
However, the scientists say there is no indication of an impending eruption like the one that killed 57 people in 1980.
“The magma reservoir beneath Mount St. Helens has been slowly re-pressurizing since 2008,” the U.S. Geological Survey said in a Wednesday statement. “It is likely the re-pressurization is caused by the arrival of a small amount of additional magma 2 to 5 miles beneath the surface.”
The USGS said they will be working this summer with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington to monitor ground deformation and seismic activity at the volcano. They will also measure gases and gravity field which can monitor subsurface magma.
A new volcano that erupted from the ocean last November and created it’s own small island has now grown to the point is has completely engulfed a neighboring volcano.
Niijima Island appeared out of the ocean in November and by the end of March created a landmass about a kilometer in length. The island is now 200 feet above sea level at its tallest point and it continues to rise.
Scientists had initially said the island would disappear back into the ocean but now say it’s uncertain how large the island could grow until after the volcano stops erupting.
The island is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and located about 600 miles south of Tokyo.
A volcanic eruption on Indonesia’s most populated island killed three people and forced more than 100,000 to flee their homes.
The debris and ash cloud from the Mount Kelud eruption spread over such a wide area that seven different airports had to be closed because of unsafe conditions.
“The eruption sounded like thousands of bombs exploding,” Ratno Pramono, a 35-year-old farmer, told FoxNews. “I thought doomsday was upon us. Women and children were screaming and crying.”
Indonesia’s disaster agency said they had reports of the eruption from 125 miles away. The ash covered the country’s second largest city, Surabaya, and its population of 3 million. In one city dozens of miles from the mountain, the ash fall was so significant it turned day into night.
The disaster agency said they were monitoring the volcano, which is still trembling, but they believe there will not be another eruption. All towns within six miles of the volcano have been abandoned.
They look like tornadoes and they cause destruction like a tornado.
Except they’re really made of scalding hot white ash from the pyroclastic flow from Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung which has been in the midst of major eruptions.
A web video released on YouTube is showing a massive pyroclastic flow rushing down the mountain and destroying everything in its path with hot gas and ash. In the wake of the flow, the video shows multiple tornado-like vortexes that continue to spin and create debris.
Scientists say the twisters technically aren’t tornadoes because there is no cumulonimbus cloud at the top. The phenomenons are more like dust devils seen throughout the desert southwest. Heat from the flow causes hot air near the ground to rapidly rise.
The smoke from the volcano is not really smoke but vaporized rock from the heat of the volcano.
Just days after Indonesian officials told residents near Mount Sinabung was beginning to weaken in volcanic activity, a major eruption has left at least 15 people dead.
Fourteen of the dead are people who were on the side of the mountain when it erupted and died when a rush of hot gas burned them alive. At least four of the dead are high school students who went to the mountain on a field trip with their teacher who also died.
Witnesses say ash at least a foot thick has blanketed miles around the mountain and that rescuers have said it’s unlikely that anyone will be found alive. Sukameriah village, about two miles from the volcano crater, has been wiped from the face of the Earth.
“There’s no signs of human life,” a witness told AFP News Agency. “All the crops were gone. Many houses were damaged and those still standing were covered in thick white ash. It was hard to walk in ash that nearly reached my calves.”
Rescue efforts have been suspended at the recommendation of volcanologists. Searchers at the site had reported volcanic tremors and thick smog.
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung burst open nine times on Monday, including one that shot hot lava almost four miles into the sky.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said that smoke and ash continue to bellow from the mountain and that lava flows have been seen winding down the mountain’s sides.
Government officials have declared a three-mile exclusion zone around the mountain forcing over 20,000 people to leave the area.
Volcanologists say the mountain had been building a lava dome since late November while it continued to spit out ash that devastated the crops of local farmers. The lava flows over the last two days have significantly lowered the level of the dome and it is expected to collapse in the next few days.
One of the country’s government volcanologists told UPI that they believe the volcano is reaching the end of its activity.
After 37 years of silence, an El Salvador volcano violently roared to life Sunday.
Chaparrastique volcano sent a cloud of ash miles into the sky forcing the evacuation of nearby villages.
President Mauricio Funes said in a televised address that government officials cannot guarantee the mountain will not erupt again and has ordered a mandatory evacuation of all residents within two miles of the mountain.
The eruption started around 10:30 a.m. local time and the column of ash reached a peak about 3 miles high. The international airport in San Salvador had to redirect flights to other airports. Multiple flights had to be cancelled.
The volcanic ash rained down on coffee fields for miles further damaging the country’s major crop. Farmers have been fighting in infestation of leaf rust that has hampered crop yields.
Officials announced on Friday that the recent earthquake swarms and sudden change in height suggest a new eruption is brewing offshore El Hierro in the Canary Islands.
Following the announcement, the volcanic island was struck by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake at 12:46 p.m. ET according to the National Geographic Institute. The quake was felt throughout the Canary Islands.
Before the quake early Friday afternoon, parts of El Hierro had swelled nearly 3 inches in the past week and more than 550 earthquakes rattled the opposite side of the island between Monday and Wednesday. According to the Volcanological Institute of the Canaries (Involcan), the earthquakes are caused by underground magma fracturing rocks and swelling the surface as the hot rock reaches upward.
In 2011, El Hierro was the site of an underwater volcanic eruption that forced residents to evacuate.
