Japan's Mount Aso Erupts; No Injuries Reported

Kumamoto, Sept. 14 (Jiji Press)--Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan, erupted on Monday, with the volcanic ash plume rising up to 2,000 meters from the crater, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The 1,506-meter Nakadake peak's No. 1 crater erupted at around 9:43 a.m. (12:43 a.m. GMT), the agency said in its first-ever eruption notice, or flash report, seven minutes later. At 10:10 a.m., the agency raised the volcanic alert for the mountain from Level 2 to Level 3, saying that nobody should approach the volcano. It also warned of large ash deposits falling in areas within 2 kilometers of the crater. As of 9 p.m., there had been no reports of injuries, the Kumamoto prefectural government said. The eruption is believed to have been a phreatomagmatic eruption caused by direct interaction between groundwater and magma. The possibility of an eruption of a greater scale is low, according to the agency. According to the city of Aso and other sources, some 40 people including tourists were in a rest area some one kilometer from the crater, but all of them evacuated safely. Some 70 people at a lower area with tourist facilities descended the mountain. A survey by helicopter shortly after noon confirmed that thick layers of volcanic ash extended one kilometer north of the crater and 1.3 kilometers southeast. It was uncertain whether a pyroclastic flow had occurred. The ash plume traveled northwest to affect the city of Kumamoto, about 40 kilometers west of the volcano, and reach Yame in Fukuoka Prefecture. "Although there are no data to suggest a larger eruption will follow, we should be prepared for an event of the same size," Sadayuki Kitagawa, the agency's volcano division chief, said at a press conference. In response to the agency's flash report, issued under a system launched last month in the wake of the deadly eruption of Mount Ontake, central Japan, in September 2014, the prime minister's office set up a crisis management center. "The government will take all possible measures to secure safety of people by closely cooperating with local authorities," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. Following the blast, local authorities banned entry to the area within a 4-kilometer radius of the crater although the directive was later eased. END