Bezymianny News!

  

A major eruption appeared at the volcano early this morning at 05:38 local time.

A spectacular grey ash-abundant plume rose up to 10-12 km altitude and extended about 20 km to the southeast of the volcano. An impressive satellite image acquired from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 portrays the significant plume traces affecting the nearest eastern shore by tephra deposits. From accessible images of the eruption from local observers, it could be seen the huge billowing ash column, spreading into an umbrella cloud - an eruption plume region where it rises until it reaches a level of neutral buoyancy, meaning its density is the same as the surroundings.

The eruption culminated in a massive and dilute pyroclastic flow as well, scooting across the vast edifice area. Whether the powerful explosion destroyed the actively growing lava dome area is not clear yet, we might to conclude it later on from upcoming taken images or satellite images. Judging from available photos, it might be 'Peléean-type'as currents are triggered by explosive events on growing lava domes, but this is just a hypothesis so far.

A huge amount of fine ash particles, released from the eruption, might present a danger for aviation and precautions with air traffic must be taken. Therefore, the KVERT local observatory raised the Aviation Color Code to "Red".

The activity at the volcano has been gradually increasing over the past week or so by generating the vigorous eruption on 29 March.