Volcano of the Week #26 - Mount Ontake

It's been a while since I've done one of these and it's a bit of a sad one. I've been planning stuff for the blog all week but considering the nature of volcanoes, it is fitting that my plan was disrupted by yesterdays eruption. It's quite big news so I imagine people know quite a lot about it (probably more than me). Mount Ontake is Japan's second biggest volcano, after Fuji, both volcanoes are in the mountainous Chubu region which is just south and west of Tokyo. Its quite hard to find out exactly when the volcano last erupted but there hasn't been a major eruption in modern times. So far over 30 people have died in the eruption, the volcano is a popular hiking spot particularly at this time of year and it's pretty beautiful, it also has religious significance and there are temples and shrines in the area.

as I said, beauts

There were hundreds of people who did manage to evacuate the volcano and the eruption had little warning. Obviously (lying on a fault line) volcanic activity in Japan is quite high and there was a bit of seismic activity but not enough to suggest the volcano was about to erupt so soon. I'm no volcanologist but what I do know is that predicting eruptions is difficult and not exactly accurate all the time. Climbing volcanoes is a risk but so are most worthwhile things (also mundane ones like crossing the road). So hopefully there will be no more fatalities and the rescue efforts go smoothly. There are loads of awesome (in the true sense of the word) pictures and videos of the eruption and here is a more scientific blog if people are interested.

Really scary video.