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Tag: Volcanoes

  • El Salvador Volcano Erupts, Residents Flee Homes

    Frightened residents in the San Miguel region of El Salvador were ordered to evacuate after a volcano erupted Sunday morning.

    According to a civil protection official, “almost right after the explosion,” the Chaparrastique volcano prompted authorities to order the evacuations of those locate three kilometers away.

    The San Miguel provenience, which has nearly 5,000 people, is known to be the center of numerous coffee plantations. Ashes were said to be falling heavily on the crops and damages could be possible.

    Residents near by were asked to use handkerchiefs as the smell of sulfur immersed into the air. The chronic smoke Chaparrastique disbursed into the atmosphere also affected the capital, located 86 miles away.

    Authorities have extensively been supervising the extremely active volcano, which last eruption was in 1976, since earlier this month.

    Red Cross spokesman Carlos Lopez Mendoza said that according to what has been reported recently, Chaparrastique’s “quite strong explosion” didn’t claim the lives of anyone in its path.

    El Salvador is home to 23 active volcanoes. Chaparrastique, however, is the third highest volcano in the country.

    A few of those whose families reside in El Salvador, took to twitter to express their concerns.

     

    Image via Youtube, NewsReport24

  • ‘Pompeii’ Disaster Movie Teased in New Trailer

    It appears that disaster movies may be making a comeback. Director Paul W.S. Anderson of Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, and The Three Musketeers fame is directing a big volcano disaster movie set for a February 21, 2014 release. Unlike disaster flicks set in modern times, this one will tackle one of the most famous natural disasters in human history.

    Titled Pompeii, the movie will follow the events surrounding the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. The bits of story revealed so far include a slave and the woman he loves, as well as a gladiator that becomes trapped in the Pompeii coliseum. The movie stars Kit Harington (Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of Thrones) as “Milo” and Emily Browning (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Sucker Punch) as “Cassia.” Other stars to appear in the movie include Kiefer Sutherland, Jared harris, and Carrie-Anne Moss.

    The first teaser trailer for Pompeii was released this week. It begins where the movie will inevitably end, with the ash-covered forms of Pompeii’s dead. It then segues into the exciting parts, previewing plenty of fighting, desperate romance, and destruction.

  • Popocatepetl Volcano Ash Grounds Mexico City Flights

    Last month, the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico began erupting, spewing ash and steam into the air. The volcano this week began acting up again, causing flights in nearby Mexico City to be cancelled. Mexican authorities have also cordoned off a 7-miles radius around the volcano.

    According to an Associated Press report, U.S. airlines including U.S. Airways, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Alaska Airlines have cancelled at least 47 flights out of and bound for the Mexico City and Toluca airports on Thursday. Mexico City is around 40 miles north of Popocatepetl, and no ash has yet reached the city. A spokesperson for the Mexico City airport stated that the airport is still operating, despite the cancellations.

    Popocatepetl last erupted in 2000, forcing thousands of Mexicans living in nearby towns to evacuate. The volcano also became active in April of last year, raising alerts as officials prepared for evacuations.

    (Image courtesy Lavintzin/Wikimedia Commons)

    (via Associated Press)

  • Alaska Volcano Disrupts Nearby Flights

    Alaska Volcano Disrupts Nearby Flights

    An Alaska volcano which has been slowly erupting for the past several weeks found new vigor on Tuesday, throwing ash and glowing cinders 5 miles into the sky.

    Pavlof Volcano–located almost 600 miles southwest of Anchorage–erupted with such force yesterday that planes had to change their flight paths to avoid the ash cloud, and some flights were canceled altogether. Volcano ash has been found as far as 30 miles away, authorities said. Pavlof has been one of the most active volcanoes in the U.S. since the early ’80s, though it laid dormant from 1996 to 2007.

    Interestingly, another volcano located on an Alaskan peninsula–Veniaminof–is also erupting, although scientists say the threat is contained to the areas at the base of the mountain, and a third volcano in the area is also active, though no eruptions have been reported.

    It’s been a busy year for active volcanoes; just last week, Popocatepetl erupted in Mexico, spewing ash as far as 40 miles away. Residents weren’t evacuated but had been on standby since mid-May, when a large eruption caused two earthquakes.

    Also in May, Mt. Mayon in the Philippines erupted violently, killing five climbers and injuring at least eight after chunks of rock the “size of a living room” were rained down from the summit.

  • Popocatepetl Volcano Erupts, Ash Could Reach Mexico City

    Popocatepetl, the second highest peak in Mexico, has erupted once again and is spewing ash that could reach Mexico City, which is 40 miles away.

    The volcano shot chunks of rock into nearby towns and witnesses say the smoke and ash plume rose at least four kilometers into the air. Residents may be evacuated if the eruptions continue, but everyone in the area has been on standby since mid-May, when a large eruption was accompanied by two earthquakes.

    The last big eruption was in 2000, when the volcano showed its most violent display in 1200 years and forced thousands of people to evacuate. There is a myth about Popocatepetl and nearby volcano Iztaccíhuatl which tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers, Popoca and Izztaccihuati (“White Lady”). Iztaccihuati, the daughter of an Aztec Emporer, fell in love with Popoca, who was sent off to war. When an enemy sent false word back home that Popoca was dead, Iztaccihuati died of a broken heart, and when Popoca came home victorious from battle to find her dead, he carried her body to the top of a mountain and had a funeral table built for her. Popoca stayed to watch over her until he, too, died of a broken heart.

    The Gods were touched by Popoca’s sacrifice and changed their bodies into great volcanos, making Popoca the largest one and dubbing it Popocatepetl (“Smoking Mountain”). The story goes that he sometimes throws out great plumes of smoke and ash as a reminder that he still watches over Iztaccihuatl, who lays sleeping still.

    You can watch live streaming of the volcano here.

  • Volcanoes on Venus Could Be Changing the Planet’s Atmosphere

    Observations by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express show that changes in Venus’ atmosphere could be the result of volcanic eruptions. A paper on the new findings has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

    According to the atmosphere of Venus contains over one million times as much sulphur dioxide as Earth’s. The gas is hidden below the thick upper clouds on Venus, and is destroyed by sunlight. Large changes in the sulphur dioxide content of Venus’ atmosphere over the past six years and signs of the gas in the upper clouds of Venus suggest the gas has been supplied recently from somewhere on Venus.

    Venus is known to be covered in volcanoes, and the Venus Express has uncovered evidence that they have been active within the last few hundred thousand to millions of years. The question of whether they are currently active is under contention.

    “If you see a sulphur dioxide increase in the upper atmosphere, you know that something has brought it up recently because individual molecules are destroyed there by sunlight after just a couple of days,” said Emmanuel Marcq, lead author the paper and a researcher with Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales.

    However, Venus’ “super-rotating” atmosphere, which circles the planet every four Earth-days, circulates the sulphur dioxide. This makes it difficult to isolate the origin of the gas on the planet.

    “A volcanic eruption could act like a piston to blast sulphur dioxide up to these levels, but peculiarities in the circulation of the planet that we don’t yet fully understand could also mix the gas to reproduce the same result,” said Jean-Loup Bertaux, co-author of the paper and principal investigator for the sulfer dioxide-detecting instrument on Venus Express.

    (Illustration courtesy ESA/AOES)