A volcano on a small Japanese island erupted again yesterday, sending a mountain of acrid smoke 8 km high and forcing more than 1,000 residents to seek safety outside their homes. Tonnes of ash and small rocks rained down after Miyakejima island's 813 metre Mount Oyama yesterday erupted early yesterday morning.
The eruption occurred about six hours after a powerful earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted small Pacific islands including Miyakejima, about 150 km southwest of Tokyo.
The smoke stack was the biggest thrown up by Mount Oyama since the volcano returned to life on July 8th after 17 years, said an official at the Meteorological agency's volcano division. Bright summer sunshine turned to early night on Miyakejima as cars were forced to crawl with their headlights on. One junior high school was covered with two centimetres of ash, the agency official said.
"We consider it to be a steam explosion but it is not clear if it was induced by magma. We are not expecting lava to flow out," he added.
"As we expect rainfall of about 60 cm by midnight, we have issued an alert for landslides and mud flows," the agency official said. The village office on Miyakejima said it had urged some 2,160 islanders living in the volcano's vicinity to shelter at safer public places such as schools.
But the fallen ash mixed with rocks was hampering movement.
"We could hear pebbles rattling on roofs for about an hour," said Ms Yoshiko Numata, a spokeswoman at the village office.
"So we also had to warn all the islanders to stay indoors to avoid the danger of being hit by small rocks," she said.
The Tokyo metropolitan administration, which has jurisdiction over Miyakejima and neighbouring islands, said the evacuation had been recommended but not ordered.
"We have not received any information about casualties or damage as a result of the eruption," said Mr Hideo Mochizuki, a metropolitan spokesman.