One of Russia’s most active volcanoes just erupted and covered villages in piles of ash

One of Russia’s most active volcanoes erupted on the eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Tuesday, shooting a cloud of ash far into the sky that blanketed villages in volcanic dust and prompted flight warnings.

Mount Shiveluch erupted shortly after midnight and reached a crescendo about six hours later, spewing ash clouds over an area of ​​108,000 square kilometers, according to the Kamchatka branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Geophysical Survey.

Lava flows fell from the volcano, melting snow and causing mudslide hazards along highways, while villages were covered in a layer of ash up to 8.5 centimeters deep, the deepest in 60 years.

The image shows clouds surrounding forests and rivers in the far east and villages covered in ash.

“The ash reached 20 kilometers, the ash cloud moved to the west and there was a very strong ash in the nearby villages,” said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey.

“The volcano has been preparing for this for at least a year … and the process continues even though it has calmed down a bit now,” Chebrov said.

The earthquake after the explosion

About 24 hours after the volcano began to erupt, an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 occurred off the coast of Kamchatka, the geological survey said. Russian scientists said the quake was an aftershock of the April 3 earthquake.

About 300,000 people live on Russia’s vast Kamchatka Peninsula, which juts into the Pacific Ocean northeast of Japan.

The volcano, one of the largest and most active in Kamchatka, will now calm down, Chebrov said, although he warned that the possibility of a large ash cloud cannot be discounted. Chebrov said the lava flow should not reach local villages.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, although scientists said the volcano was still erupting 15 hours after the eruption began.

Schools were closed as ash spread

The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) issued a red alert for aviation, saying that “continued activity may affect international and low-flying aircraft.”

Some schools on the peninsula, about 6,800 kilometers east of Moscow, were closed and residents were ordered to stay indoors, the head of the Ust-Kamchatsky municipal region, Oleg Bondarenko, said in a Telegram post.

“Because of what I saw here with my own eyes, it’s likely that children can’t go to school, and in general the presence of children here is questionable,” said Bondarenko.

He said residents have been restored to electricity and are being provided with drinking water.

Shiveluch has had about 60 substantial eruptions in the past 10,000 years, the most recent of which was in 2007.

It has two main parts, the smaller one – Young Shiveluch – scientists have reported to be very active in recent months, with a peak of 2,800 meters coming out of the Old Shiveluch which is 3,283 meters high.