One of the most active volcanoes in Russia erupted today (Tuesday) on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East.
The eruption caused huge ash clouds that were carried high into the sky and covered the nearby villages in gray volcanic dust.
The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight and the volcanic ash clouds spread over an area of 108,000 square kilometers. Also, lava flows fell from the volcano, melting the snow and triggering a mudslide warning along the nearby highway. Villages were covered in the gray volcanic dust At a depth of 8 and a half centimeters, the deepest in 60 years.
About 300,000 people live on Russia’s vast Kamchatka Peninsula. There were no reports of casualties and the eruption process continued for 15 hours since it began.
The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) issued an Aviation Red Notice, saying that “continued activity may affect international and low-altitude flights.”
Danila Chabrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Institute, said that “the ash reached a height of 20 km, the ash cloud moved west and there was a very heavy fall of ash on the nearby villages. We have been preparing for this for at least a year… the eruption process continues even now although it has calmed down a bit now.”
The Shiblukh volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka and so far over the past 10,000 years about 60 major eruptions have been recorded, with the largest of them occurring in 2007. The mountain is divided into two main parts, the smaller one being the most active in recent months and rising to a height of about 2,800 meters, where the second part rises to a height of 3,283 meters.
???????????? Houses and cars within 15 km radius of Shiveluch Volcano, Kamchatka. Ashfall continues, ash cloud extends 500 kilometers northwest of Shiveluch and continues to https://t. co/FancR9iQjP height of ash layer = 8.5 centimeters. pic.twitter.com/LoCEpRJXUT
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