Volcano erupts explosively on small southwestern Japan island

The 9:59 a.m. "explosive" eruption of Mt. Shindake, which stands about 650 meters above sea level on the island, caused a plume of black smoke over 9 kilometers above the crater and a pyroclastic flow to reach the coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. One islander has received burns, according to the Kagoshima prefectural government, which has asked the Self-Defense Forces to dispatch a disaster team and neighboring prefectures to mobilize disaster helicopters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters, "I have instructed the relevant personnel to do all they can to ensure the safety of islanders." The prime minister's office set up a response team at its crisis management center, and the Japan Coast Guard and the SDF sent ships and aircraft to gather more information about the situation. A 64-year-old guest house manager on the island in the East China Sea told Kyodo News, "The sound (of the blast) was tremendous this time" and that she immediately ran to a shelter. Another evacuee Yukina Masuda said, "The scale is far larger than last year's eruption." Of the 137 residents of Kuchinoerabu about 100 kilometers south of the southern tip of Japan's main island of Kyushu, most have found shelter within the island, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in Tokyo. Including those staying there on short visits, 141 people from 78 families are set to evacuate the island, where access is limited to two ferry routes, the prefectural government said. The evacuation warning comes as the weather agency's alert for the island has been upgraded to the highest level of 5 -- hitting the level for the first time since the volcanic alert system was introduced in 2007 -- and up from 3, which imposes limits on climbing the volcano. Another eruption of similar size could occur again, an agency official told a press conference. The volcanic island's last eruption on Aug. 3 last year had a plume over 800 meters from the crater and led to 87 people leaving the island the following day. Kuchinoerabu has repeatedly seen eruptions and earthquakes, some of which have turned deadly. In 1841 Mt. Shindake erupted causing villages to be burnt out and resulting in many deaths, while a series of eruptions from late 1933 to early 1934 left eight people dead and 26 injured. Experts had seen some unusual signs on the island for about a decade before last year's eruption, and the latest eruption could be a relatively large, prolonged one, said Associate Professor Ryusuke Imura of Kagoshima University. Japan lies in the Pacific Ring of Fire and experts have warned that the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that hit northeastern Japan in March 2011 may have cranked up volcanic activity. The eruption last Sept. 27 of Mt. Ontake in central Japan became the nation's worst postwar volcanic disaster with a death toll of 57 and six people still missing, and the hot spring area at Mt. Hakone near Tokyo has seen its ground level rise by up to 15 centimeters in two weeks this month. Mt. Sakurajima also in Kagoshima Prefecture saw an explosive eruption with a plume of 5 km in August 2013. There were 178 eruptions of this type in March alone and last week an eruption led to a plume of 4.3 km. Source: Kyodo