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Shiveluch volcano spews ash at 9,5 km above sea level

This spew is the most powerful eruption of ash registered at Shiveluch since the beginning of the year

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, April 17 (Itar-Tass) — The Shiveluch volcano in Kamchatka has spewed an ash column to a height of 9.5 kilometres above sea level. This poses no danger to nearby populated localities, in Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) told Itar-Tass.

The RAS branch specified that at 05:59, local time, Tuesday (21:59 MSK on April 16) an earthquake was recorded at the volcano that could be accompanied by ash ejection to a height of 12 kilometres. According to video surveillance, an ash column from the volcano rose to a height of 9.5 kilometres above sea level. The eruption of volcanic dust lasted 20 minutes. The plume of ash in the atmosphere, according to preliminary estimates, shifted at a distance of 100 kilometres the east of the volcano.

No volcanic dust fall has been registered in nearby settlements, including in the Klyuchi settlement (located 50 kilometres from the volcano).

This spew is the most powerful eruption of ash registered at Shiveluch since the beginning of the year, the Kamchatka branch of the RAS Geophysical Service reported. According to its classification, the volcano was given the highest Red Aviation Code that warns of the giant mount’s intense activity.

Services, ensuring the safety of flights have been warned about the state of the volcano and the potential hazard that gases and ash it erupts into the atmosphere can pose to aircraft.

Shiveluch is the northernmost active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is located 450 kilometres northeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Shiveluch’s eruptions are explosive. In 1864 and 1964 there were surges of its activity that experts qualified as catastrophic. At the present time, according to scientists, the volcano poses no danger to nearby populated localities.

Its height above sea level is 3,283 metres. The highest point of the active part, called Young Shiveluch, rises 2,500 metres above sea level, the diameter of the crater - 1.5 kilometres.

Young Shiveluch is active since September 1980. Experts have been continuously monitoring the volcano for more than 30 years.