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Back and bubbling: Kamchatka geyser ‘First-born’ springs again

The geyser was buried under a landslide eight years ago

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, July 30. /TASS/. A geyser buried eight years ago under a landslide in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula has woken, nature reserve officials report.

Pervenets - translating as First-born - has ended its slumber from beneath earth and stones. Now it has struggled back to life, its spring now erupting at 20-minute intervals and spouting a three-metre water column, says Kronotsky Nature Reserve.

Kamchatka’s Valley of Geysers is one of the largest such fields on the planet and the only one in Eurasia - a deep canyon of the river Geysernaya where hot springs, mud pots, thermal pads, waterfalls and lakes abound. Reaching it is possible only by helicopter, restricting visitor numbers to no more than 3,000 a year.

The location’s biggest geyser, Velikan - translating as the Giant - is also "ready to wake", say officials watching its now-boiling, pulsating spring. Last year, floods submerged it in slurry, plugging the near 25,000 litres of scalding water rising 35 metres into the air every 5-7 hours.