Increased seismic activity registered at Kamchatka’s Karymsky Volcano

16.09.2011 16:57:09 (GMT+12)

Increased seismic activity is registered at the Karymsky Volcano on Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. It has been spewing ash for the second day running, this time to an altitude of 4.6 kilometers above sea level, a spokesman for the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

According to the spokesman, the volcano poses no threat to populated localities.

Ash spews were accompanied by earth tremors and avalanches of lava and pieces of volcanic rocks. The ash plume stretched 20 kilometers to the south-east of the giant mount.

A previous ash eruption was registered on September 14. The volcano emitted ash to heights from one to 4.1 kilometers above sea level.

The “orange” aviation alert code has been assigned to the volcano, warning of the danger their volcanic dust and emitted gases pose to aircraft.

The 1,486-metre high Karymsky is the most active volcano of Kamchatka's eastern volcanic zone and a perfect symmetrical stratovolcano. Its activity increased dramatically in 1996 and continues with periodic eruptions until the present. The volcano is located in the central part of Kamchatka’s eastern volcanic belt 30 kilometers off the Pacific coast and 125 kilometers to the north of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

(Itar-Tass).