MOUNT ASO ERUPTION. Mount Aso, one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, erupted on October 21, throwing ash 3,500 meters above sea level. The images are spectacular.
[Updated Oct 25 09:58 AM] One of Japan’s most watched volcanoes, Mount Aso erupted on October 20, 2021. The largest volcano in the archipelago, Mount Aso was rocked by a violent eruption volcano followed by a plume of smoke that invaded the sky around Kumamoto, the prefecture of the region where Mount Aso is located, in the south of the island of Kyushu. The spectacular awakening of the volcano was followed by a column of ash projected above the summit at 3500 meters altitude and impressive pyroclastic flows were emitted more than a kilometer from the crater.
Unlike the eruptions of so-called “red” volcanoes where you can clearly see the lava flows, “grey” volcanoes like Mount Aso are just as dangerous when they wake up. The fiery gray clouds which escape from it thus move between 200 and 600 km/h.
If rocks were thrown, no victims would be deplored according to the Japan Times while hikers were quickly evacuated from the tourist site. The alert was immediately raised to level 3 out of 5 in the constituencies of Aso, Minami-Aso and Takamori as the authorities multiplied the messages inviting them not to approach the site of Mount Aso. A press conference followed. Retransmitted on television, it saw an official from the Japanese Meteorological Agency warn of risks “you have to be careful of large rocks and flows of pyroclastic material”, the mixture of gas and ash produced by the erupting volcano.
First pictures of the eruption quickly circulated on social networks and then in the Japanese media. Find the first photos in our dedicated slideshow.
Japanese televisions quickly switched to live to follow the first hours of the eruption of Mount Aso. Several video streams are also available on Youtube.
This is the first time since 2016 that Mount Aso has been rocked by such activity. At the time, the volcano’s awakening was recorded after nearly 20 years of slumber. The eruption was then preceded by several explosions in 2014 and a gradual raising of the alert level, even going as far as a cancellation of commercial flights in the area. The eruption began on September 14, 2015, followed by an eruption from one of the peaks in October 2016. It was then a first since 1980! Since that date, Mount Aso was under close surveillance…. before October 20, 2021, the date of its new eruption.
