Volcano erupts on Yemeni island, killing soldiers
Pastor Dale Morgan
Volcano erupts on Yemeni island, killing soldiers*
James Orr and agencies
Monday October 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
At least four soldiers are reported dead and more are missing after a
volcanic eruption on a tiny Yemeni island in the Red Sea.
Lava and ash were spewed hundreds of feet into the air during the
explosion on Jabal al-Tair, forcing authorities to evacuate a military base.
The AFP news agency reported that four Yemeni soldiers were burned to
death and a major rescue operation was mounted for the rest of the garrison.
Nato said a fleet of its ships nearby had been asked to help locate nine
soldiers missing from the island, which is 70 miles off the Yemeni coast.
HMCS Toronto, part of the Nato fleet en route to the Suez Canal, was
sent to help search for the survivors, believed to have made it out to sea.
Ken Allan of the Canadian armed forces said: "The entire island is aglow
with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea. The lava is spewing
hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also a thousand
feet in the air."
Jabal al-Tair, meaning bird mountain, is one of several volcanoes at the
southern end of the Red Sea between Yemen and Sudan.
The island, two miles wide, has no civilian population, only military
installations used for Yemeni naval control. It is not clear how many
military personnel were there during the eruption.
The Yemeni news agency SABA reported that rescuers were still searching
for missing soldiers.
Jabal al-Tair's last eruption was in 1883, according to the
Washington-based Smithsonian Institute's global volcano programme.
There had been considerable seismic activity around the island ahead of
yesterday's eruption, the Yemeni defence ministry said on its website,
including an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on Friday.