The Mount Aso volcano, located in Japan, erupted early Saturday morning, sending an ash cloud 11,000 meters into the sky. Nearby towns were alerted by the threat, and no injuries have been reported.
The eruption accounted as Japan’s biggest volcano explosion in years, sending volcanic rocks 6.8 miles into the sky on Saturday morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency alerted the population by raising the alert level in the area.
Even though there are no houses nearby the volcano’s location, cars, and buildings in the town were filled with ashes on Saturday after Mount Aso’s eruption. Local tv reported the explosion and showed the thick gray cloud of smoke emerging from the mount.
Volcano eruption
Mount Aso, located in the Asi Kuju National Park nearby the Kumamoto Prefecture in the island of Kyushu, is known as the world largest volcano and as Japan’s most active one.
With 1592 meters above sea level, Mount Aso is a popular hiking spot for locals and is accessible by road, although the volcano is known for its continuous emissions of smoke and sporadic eruptions, since its first one 70 years ago.
Japan is located in the “Ring of Fire” which is known as a shaped band of almost 100 volcanos near the Pacific Ocean.
Saturday’s eruption was the first “explosive eruption” from Mount Aso since January 1980, as reported by Japan’s meteorological agency. After the explosion, city authorities prepared evacuation centers as a form of precaution.
The Japan meteorological agency raised the city’s volcano alert to a level three, on a scale of five, after the 11,000-meter volcanic eruption took place. Authorities also warned citizens of falling rock and ashes, pledging them to stay away from the active mountain.
According to the meteorological agency, the explosion took place at the mount’s No- 1 crater in the 1,506-meter Nakadake peak at 2:00 a.m Saturday morning.
The volcanic eruption damaged vinyl greenhouses in the community, affecting the cultivation of asparagus and tomatoes located 5 miles away from Mount Aso, windows also suffered damages due to falling rocks.
“We are concerned that more damage on crops will be reported,” informed city officials to Reuters.
Almost 30,000 households suffered a power loss after the eruption. However, city officials managed to fix the issue in less than two hours. Some flights were slowly delayed as a response to the situation.
Last year the volcano started spewing ashes into the city’s atmosphere, creating a thick cloud of gray smoke in the air and causing over twenty flights to be delayed in the Kumamoto Airport.
The city of Kyushu continues to recover from the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that merged into the town on April this year, killing 26 people hours after a temblor struck the city that left 28 dead people. The quake caused the evacuation of 90,000 people in the Kumamoto prefecture.
Source: Reuters