Japan island volcano erupts, children evacuated

On Tuesday, residents on Miyakejima island south of Tokyo look at an early morning eruption of the Mount Oyama volcano

TOKYO (Reuters) -- A volcano on a Japanese island 180 km (113 miles) south of Tokyo spewed a huge column of steam, smoke and ash on Tuesday, forcing authorities to speed up a planned evacuation of school children from the island.

The last school children on Miyakejima, many smiling nervously, left the island by boat on Tuesday afternoon, two days earlier than previously scheduled.

"This new eruption made us decide to speed up the evacuation as it's no longer safe," a Board of Education official said. The volcano erupted twice on Tuesday: a major eruption near dawn followed by a more muted repetition in the afternoon.

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The Meteorological Agency said in the evening that the morning eruption appeared to have caused a flow of heated ash and gas to run down the mountain, although it said the temperature of the ash seemed to have been low and the speed of the flow slow.

Such a flow can be fatal as the ash and the gas tend to be superheated and the mixture can run down the sides of a volcano at a fast speed.

In 1991, 43 people were engulfed by the deadly flow and died in an volcanic eruption on Japan's southwestern island of Kyushu.

"If you were to place top priority on the lives of the people, they should all evacuate the island," said an official of the government's Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruption.

Some 139 children, from first graders to high schoolers, many carrying backpacks, boarded a boat at the island's pier as their parents choked back tears.

"Going away is fun, but I know I'll worry about my mother," one girl told NHK public television.

There are normally close to 500 students on the island, but the rest had already left voluntarily.

Firefighters carry an elderly person on a strecher from a helicoper at a Tokyo heliport

Authorities were hurrying to take enough food and bedding to a boarding school in western Tokyo where the students will be housed, NHK added.

The evacuation will last at least until the end of September.

Television footage of the morning eruption showed Miyakejima island shadowed by a massive pall of smoke and ash that shot as high as 8,000 meters (26,400 feet) into the air from Mount Oyama.

Officials said the eruption -- the second-largest in a series that began in June -- emitted no volcanic cinders, unlike an eruption on August 18 that was the largest in 17 years, but warned that the situation remained quite fluid.

"There is a strong smell of sulfur in the air," an official at the Miyakejima town office said.

There was no outflow of lava but up to 15 cm (six inches) of ash had accumulated on some parts of the island.

No ash fell after the afternoon eruption, officials said.

Residents were told to stay indoors and officials prepared evacuation centers for those who wanted to flee their homes.

No formal evacuation order had been issued, however, and there were no reports of injuries.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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