Mount Ontake, a volcano straddling Nagano and Gifu prefectures, erupted on Saturday, spewing ash and small rocks into the air, killing a female hiker, leaving at least 16 people unconscious and 30 others seriously injured, and stranding more than 40 on the mountain, officials and media said. Following the eruption at 11:53 a.m., a thick, rolling gray cloud of ash rose high into the sky above the mountain close to where hikers were taking pictures, TV footage showed. Hikers and residents were warned of falling rock and ash within a radius of 4 km. https://youtube/watch?v=7Ea3uED1Zgc A Nagano prefectural official said at least 16 other people were unconscious, based on information gathered from mountain lodges where people were seeking shelter. There were also indications that more than 30 hikers were seriously wounded. At one point, more than 250 hikers had been stranded on the mountain, which is 3,067 meters high. But some 200 managed to descend by Saturday evening, police said. The remainder were forced to spend the night on the mountain until rescue work resumed Sunday morning. Nagano police sent an 80-strong team to assist climbers who were making their way down the mountain, while Kiso Prefectural Hospital, near Ontake, said it had dispatched a medical emergency team. “We expect a lot of injured people so we are now getting ready for their arrival,” said an official at the hospital. The Meteorological Agency said the volcano, about 200 km west of Tokyo, erupted just before midday and sent ash pouring down the mountain’s south slope for more than 3 km. The agency is forecasting further eruptions that may affect people living around the base of the mountain. No signs of any lava were seen in the TV report, but the footage showed dozens of hikers covered with ash hurriedly descending the mountain. Climbers reaching the bottom points of one trail grasped each other with joy and relief to have made it down. “I barely escaped,” a local resident told NHK. “Immediately after I watched the eruption, I ran away from it but I was soon covered with ash, which piled up to some 20 cm.”
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 14:42:40 +0000
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