Kamchatka’s Shiveluch spews ash to 5.5 kilometers above sea level

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, April 28. /TASS/. The Shiveluch volcano on Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula has spewed ash to an altitude of 5.5 kilometers above sea level. The ash plume is drifting away from populated localities, a spokesman for the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) said on Thursday. "The ash column reached 5.5 kilometers above sea level. The ash plume is being taken by the wind in a northwest direction, where there are no populated localities," the spokesman said. Shiveluch is the northernmost active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is located 450 kilometers northeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The absolute height of the volcano is 3,283 meters. The highest point of its active part, called Young Shiveluch, is 2,500 meters above sea level, the diameter of the crater is 1.5 kilometers. Catastrophic eruptions took place in 1864 and 1964, when a large part of the lava dome collapsed and created a devastating debris avalanche. Young Shiveluch has been active since September 1980. Specialists have been continuously monitoring the volcano for more than 30 years. So far the volcano poses no threat to neighboring populated localities. Read more