Pacific submarine volcano issues 'big burp'
(CNN) -- A rapid Pacific submarine volcano eruption has exhaled a steam and ash cloud in the air and left a trail of debris on the surface of the water near Sarigan Island in the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. officials said Monday.
Game McGimsey, a volcanologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said the vent, lying 1,000 feet under the surface, issued a cloud 40,000 reaching feet in the air.
As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evacuated 16 people, mostly its scientists, from the Northern Islands off Saipan following the eruption, reported the Saipan Tribune. The area is U.S. territory.
The current volcano alert level is advisory, and the current aviation color code is yellow, meaning volcanic activity has decreased significantly but continues to be closely monitored for possible renewed increase.
Satellite images show no sign of ongoing activity, according to a report form the USGS.
Seismographs indicate a rapid and short-lived onset and that the eruption lasted a couple of minutes, McGimsey said.
"It seems to be just one big burp," said Mike Middlebooke, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service in Guam, about the cloud burst.
The vent lies seven miles south of Sarigan, an uninhabited island that was used as a copra plantation during World War II, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a chain between Hawaii and the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Evacuees from the islands Sarigan and Pagan were all U.S. Marine and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands scientific crews, McGimsey said.
The USGS monitors don't have instruments on submarine volcanoes, and it took a while for scientists to pinpoint the exact location of the volcano, McGimsey said.
Satellites picked up the ash cloud on Friday. The cloud detached from the area above the vent, indicating the underwater eruption had ceased, he said.
Scientists, who originally thought the cloud came from the Anatahan or Sarigan volcano, identified the cloud source by the large amount of debris and water discoloration above the vent, he said.
While people aren't encouraged to hang around, there are no restrictions on the area, Middlebrooke said.
Vanuatu's volcano causing havoc
Published: 11:23AM Tuesday June 01, 2010
Source: AAP
Source: NZPATourists climb Mt Yasur while a dense cloud of ash and smoke spews from the crater during volcanic activity on Tanna Island, Vanuatu
Ash belching from a Vanuatu volcano is an increasing health threat to islanders and their water supplies.
The cloud from erupting Mount Yasur has billowed some 1,800 metres high and affected flights in neighbouring New Caledonia.
Tourists have been banned from the scenic spot under persistent bombardment from lava and burning rocks.
Government officials have visited the island of Tanna to assess the overall impact of the eruption.
"They have come across some experiences where young children have gone through like headache, stomach ache," Donald Manses, operations officer for the Vanuatu Disaster Management Office, told Radio New Zealand.
"They have found out also that the water is contaminated."
Manses said some families had chosen to leave the island, but "people have not been asked to evacuate".
About ten villages lie within the volcano's current hazard zone, Radio New Zealand reported.
"There's a lot of volcanic ash coming out of the volcano," Manses told AAP on Tuesday.
"The seismologists are there, we have them monitoring the scene.
"They will probably give us any updates on that sometime this week."
Tristan Oakley, an aviation forecaster with New Zealand's Meteorological Service, said authorities had issued an advisory and it was up to airlines to avoid the affected area or cancel flights if necessary.
Oakley said Vanuatu's Geohazard team had advised him that Mount Yasur was still belching one to two kilometres into the air.
But Manses told AAP there had been no impact on flights in and out of Vanuatu.
However, last Friday Australia issued a travel advisory saying visitors were now barred from the volcano zone.
"Public access to the volcano is now strictly prohibited and people living in the risk zone should move to safer areas," the advisory said.
There are several active volcanoes in the Vanuatu islands group, according to the country's Geohazard scientists.
Another, on the island of Gaua, was causing locals the most concern.
About 82 people remain in re-location centres while mudflow causes significant damage to crops with ash, volcanic gas and acid rain contaminating drinking water.
"It has been continuously erupting since November last year," Manses told AAP.
"We have evacuated communities from the west part of the island, we already evacuated them last year and they are still in re-location centres," he said.
"The seismologists cannot tell when people can return to their original homes, so they are still there in re-location centres."
The archipelago, which lies between Australia and Fiji and north of New Zealand, was rocked by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake last week, prompting a brief tsunami warning.
Last year it copped three major earthquakes.
--
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