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Kamchatka’s volcano eruption poses no danger to local settlements

The volcano grew active on Tuesday night after being dormant for 36 years, since 1976

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, November 30 (Itar-Tass) — Flows of lava from the Plosky Tolbachik Volcano erupting on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula have destroyed several non-residential buildings some ten kilometers away from the volcano, but the volcano poses no danger to the local settlements, specialists from the Kamchatka branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Geophysical Service told Tass on Friday.

Lava has destroyed constructions belonging to the Leningradskaya base of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and to the base of the Kamchatka Volcanoes nature park.

The volcano grew active on Tuesday night after being dormant for 36 years, since 1976. An increased seismic activity inside the volcano has been recorded. Roar from the eruption could be heard dozens of kilometers away. An ash fall was fixed in the settlements of Maiskoye and Krasny Yar.

Scientists have managed to fly around the volcano. It emits very liquid lava, and two blowing cones are growing in the area of the eruption. At the present time the volcano emits ash no higher than 3.5 kilometers above the sea level, sources from the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service told Tass. The code of hazard to aviation has been reduced to “orange”.

However, it continues demonstrating an increased activity. “Great thermal abnormality” is fixed in its northern part. Ash from the eruption of the Plosky Tolbachik has fallen on Friday in the settlement of Kozyrevsk, situated some 60 kilometers away from the volcano. Local schools have been closed. The authorities have recommended the local population not to leave their houses without necessity and closely shut the doors and windows, the Kamchatka regional government reported.