PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, October 21 (Itar-Tass) - Active eruption of the Klyuchevskoi volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula has ended. The giant mount has stopped spewing ash. At 01:00, local time, Monday, the volcanic tremor amplitude fell to zero, the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) told Itar-Tass.
If in the past few days Klyuchevskoi was continuously spewing ash to a height of 8 to 10 km above sea level, and the eruption plume was stretching 1.2 thousand km east and southeast of the crater, then now only the emission of steam and gas is observed. Steam is rising above the crater to at a height of about 100 metres.
The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) also states that the Klyuchevskoi eruption climax is past. The volcano’s aviation colour code, warning about the level of danger it poses to aircraft has been reduced from red to orange. However, the probability of ash spews from the crater to a height of up to 8 km remains, experts say.
According to the Kamchatka branch of the RAS Geophysical Service, the peak of activity of the Klyuchevskoi volcano was registered in the period from October 15 to October 20. All this time, with the continuously increasing volcanic tremor amplitude, it was spewing ash into the sky. The ash plume from the eruption was spreading most of the time away from the nearby settlements. However, on October 18, a 2-mm thick layer of volcanic dust was observed in the area of the Lazo, Atlasovo and Tayozhny settlements, located at a distance of about 80 km from the volcano.
Klyuchevskoi is the highest active volcano in Eurasia (4,750 metres above sea level) and one of the most active volcanoes in the world, according to experts of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Its eruptions usually occur once in every 5 - 6 years and are accompanied by hot lava flows from the crater and powerful ash outbursts. The previous eruption of this volcano was observed from September 2009 to December 2010. The current eruption began in August 2013 and was accompanied by the usual for such status of the giant mount phenomena - lava flows, ash spews and ejection of incandescent volcanic material from the crater. Klyuchevskoi is located 360 kilometres northeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The nearest settlement of Klyuchi, with a population of approximately 5.6 thousand, is located 30 km from the foot of the volcano. Klyuchevskoi is under continuous monitoring of experts. It poses no danger to nearby populated localities, experts say.