Hundreds flee volcano in PNG
Ash clouds have been thrown up steadily to a height of 2,133 metres, forming a plume
Aremote island volcano in Papua New Guinea has begun spewing ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of more than 500 residents, media and non-profit groups have said.
Kadovar Island, a 365-metretall volcano on the north coast of PNG, was thought to be dormant until it began erupting on January 5.
“It’s just a continuous emission of volcanic ash at the moment,” Cheyne O’Brien, a forecaster at the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, said by telephone yesterday.
The ash clouds have been thrown up steadily to a height of 2,133 metres, forming a plume that is travelling west-northwest, he added.
The plume does not yet pose a hazard to aviation, but a change in wind direction could hit operations at PNG’s Wewak airport, O’Brien said. All residents of the island have been evacuated with no loss of life, USbased charity Samaritan Aviation, which operates seaplanes to remote areas of PNG, said on Facebook.
“We do not have any details yet as to where all of the families have gone and hope to have further information in the near future,” the non-profit added.
The population of the island ranges from at least 500 to more than 600, media have estimated. The eruption may become explosive, bringing a risk of tsunamis and landslides, domestic online media Loop PNG quoted the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory as saying. There are no confirmed records of a previous eruption of Kadovar, said Chris Firth, a volcanologist at Macquarie University.