Japan volcano: Mount Shindake erupts, forcing evacuation

Kyodo--

A volcano exploded Friday morning on sparsely populated Kuchinoerabu Island, sending smoke and ash soaring into the sky above Kagoshima Prefecture and residents fleeing to the safety of nearby Yakushima Island.

The eruption of 626-meter Mount Shindake, the island’s main peak, produced a plume over 9 km high and a pyroclastic flow that reached the shoreline, the Meteorological Agency there said.

There was no warning.

“I heard a loud boom and when I looked at the mountains, I saw a gigantic plume rising above,” said a 64-year-old innkeeper who was in her garden at the time.

“I thought I’d be dead if I got caught in the cloud,” she said explaining why she ran to the shelter without any belongings. “There was an eruption last year, but this time the sound was really loud.”

All 137 of Kuchinoerabu’s residents were confirmed safe, including a 72-year-old man who received a forehead burn but was able to walk unaided, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency and local authorities said.

All had been evacuated by ferry, coast guard ship and helicopter to neighboring Yakushima Island by Friday evening, the Yakushima town office said.

Both islands are about 100 km south of Kyushu, but Yakushima is usually reachable only by two ferry routes.

“I have instructed the relevant personnel to do all they can to ensure the safety of the islanders,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

The prime minister’s office set up a response team at its crisis management center,  while the Japan Coast Guard dispatched a large patrol ship to the area.

While no lava streams had been spotted as of Friday evening, a weather agency official warned of the risk of a second eruption and more pyro­clastic flows, noting that none had reached the more populous Maeda district.

Situated some 100 km off the southern tip of Kyushu, Kuchinoerabu has only about 100 full-time residents. Some believed to have been present at the time were short-term visitors. The prefectural government said 141 people in all, from 78 families, were ordered to evacuate.

The evacuation started after the weather agency raised its alert for the island to 5 — the highest level — from 3, which imposed limits on climbing the volcano.

Friday’s eruption, which unleashed a large ash cloud, created a panic as residents fled with only the barest necessities.

Yukina Masuda who managed to evacuate to a shelter near the top of another peak, Banyagamine, said the eruption was much bigger than last year’s.

“It looks like all of the island’s residents are crammed into this shelter,” she said.

Hiroshi Watanabe, 61, who manages a campsite on adjacent Yakushima, said he learned of the eruption via the local wireless system.

Until Friday, the volcano’s most recent eruption had been on Aug. 3 last year. That eruption prompted 87 people, including some individuals visiting on business, to leave the following day.

Experts had recorded unusual activity for about a decade leading up to last year’s eruption, and the latest blast could be a relatively large, prolonged one, said associate professor Ryusuke Imura of Kagoshima University.

Since the 2000s, a large increase in volcanic quakes and tremors has been reported. An expansion at its crater and white fumes were detected in 2008, but one of its most recent eruptions, on Aug. 3, 2014, sent fumes higher than 800 meters.