Japan's Mt. Aso erupted this morning
By Denise
@petatonicsca (7070)
Japan
October 7, 2016 9:45pm CST
Mount Aso is on the island of Kyushu and put off a big ash cloud this morning. It went up at least 10,000 meters in the air and ash is expected to fall, largely in the area of the volcano, but possibly as far as 230 km away. The last large eruption there was 19 years ago, but there was also a smaller eruption in 2015.
That makes several volcanoes in Japan that have erupted in the past month. Sakurajima and Suwanosejima are two of them. In addition, several volcanoes in Indonesia and two in Kamchatka are erupting. That's a lot for the western side of the Ring of Fire!
There are not many people near Mt. Aso, so it is not dangerous right now. It is at level 3 (do not approach the mountain) of 5 levels.
The most trouble that volcanoes cause in our modern times is emitting ash that can damage aircraft engines, but the planes just need to take another route.
I'm not scared of volcanoes. I'm more worried about earthquakes, as they can suddenly affect human lives. What about you? Are you scared of volcanoes, earthquakes, or other natural phenomena (like hurricanes, this week...)? For all those things, though, I say, Don't be scared, be prepared!
5 people like this
6 responses
@OneOfMany (12150)
• United States
8 Oct 16
Mt St Helens is waking up lately, but they don't know when that will blow up again. I don't have any really bad threats around here. The occasional Tornado to watch out for, and the Hurricanes, of course, but nothing else.
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@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
8 Oct 16
I was in Vancouver, BC when she blew the first time. I was just getting ready to play the organ prelude and the whole church felt like a truck had hit the front of it.
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@OneOfMany (12150)
• United States
8 Oct 16
@petatonicsca That's pretty impressive that you felt it up there so severely. There was a volcanologist on the scene and it was just starting to erupt and he started to go down the road when he saw a family watching it. He told them to get the heck out of there but they said that they were plenty far away and he left them to their fate. All of them were killed.
Hopefully people will pay attention if the signs pop up again.
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@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
8 Oct 16
@OneOfMany Good advice, and I have found this graphic, which helps somewhat:
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@marguicha (230350)
• Chile
8 Oct 16
I livw in a country with many earthquakes. Fortunatly, we build so hat erthquakes don´t cause as much harm as theydo in other places. In the last big quake in 2010, the houses that crumbled downwere very old houses that should have been replaced many decades ago.
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@marguicha (230350)
• Chile
8 Oct 16
@petatonicsca In the 2010 earthquake, the houses that went down were all adobe. And I remember that around the time Haiti had a much lesser quake yet there were much more deaths. I think that even now things are still destroyed.
@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
8 Oct 16
You certainly do-- I think Chile has even more quakes than Japan. And the ones you have are usually stronger. I'm happy that Japan also has very strict building codes, and so probably we won't have as much trouble as poorer countries. I worry about my family that live in an old wooden house, though.
2 people like this
@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
9 Oct 16
@marguicha Yes, some people in Haiti are still living in shelters. And now they had Hurricane Matthew.
@much2say (57760)
• Los Angeles, California
8 Oct 16
Being in Southern CA, I've lived with earthquakes all my life. I'm not "scared" of jishins as we are used to the shakes, but it's the big ones we need to worry about (I remember the '94 one all too well). My dad is from Kagoshima, so we know about Sakurajima. I guess it had been a sleeping one for a long time. Volcanoes I'm not afraid of either, but of course living by one would be a different story.
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@much2say (57760)
• Los Angeles, California
10 Oct 16
@petatonicsca I actually have not. I would love to though. My grandmother lived in Kagoshima, but after she passed away, my uncle wanted to sell the entire property (which was in my grandfather's family for a few generations), so he had her old house demolished - what a shame.
@yukimori (10192)
• United States
8 Oct 16
It's good to hear that not many people will need to worry about the eruption of Mt. Aso. We don't have many natural phenomena that threaten us here--there are occasional tornadoes, but nothing like what's seen through Tornado Alley. The biggest problem we deal with is wildfires, which sometimes burn thousands of acres of forest. A few years ago my city made international news because we lost 19 members of our hotshot crew in the Yarnell Fire.
@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
8 Oct 16
I grew up in Tornado Alley and I am probably more scared of tornadoes than anything else. Never been near a wildfire but I have a lot of friends in California. With the amount of rain we are getting in Japan right now we don't need to worry about wildfires. Just floods.
1 person likes this
@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
8 Oct 16
I think Indonesia has the most active volcanoes in that part of the world. The closest ones to where I live are probably Iceland, then the Canary Islands, both in the Atlantic. The Giant's Causeway here was the result of volcanic activity aeons ago.
@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
9 Oct 16
@petatonicsca I took a look at volcanodiscovery, very interesting!
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@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
9 Oct 16
I think both Iceland and the Canary Islands are very interesting geologically! Right now I think there are four or five actively erupting volcanoes in Indonesia, three in Japan, two in Mexico and a couple in Central America and South America. I like to read volcanodiscovery.
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