Previous Story
EMO team flies to Anatahan
|
Posted on Apr 22 2005
A team from the Emergency Management Office flew to Anatahan yesterday to repair the only functional seismic station on the island.
The team, which included EMO’s geophysical seismic technician Juan Takai Camacho, flew to Anatahan in the morning and got back in the afternoon. Camacho, however, could not be reached for comment if the mission was successful.
Earlier this week, Camacho said that all seismic stations that were installed on Anatahan to monitor the volcanic activity on the island have been malfunctioning, hampering the EMO’s monitoring capability.
Even the only functional seismic station on that island got seriously degraded, with seismic signal becoming unreliable beginning Monday afternoon. Two other seismic stations have malfunctioned earlier.
As of yesterday, the EMO said that seismicity on Anatahan appeared to be low. It also added that a thin plume of ash and steam was rising to about 10,000 feet. The plume extended over 100 nautical miles west-southwest of the island.
Last April 6, the volcano spat out about 50 million cubic meters of ash. The eruption sent clouds of ash to an altitude of 50,000 feet.
The EMO continues to warn aircraft to avoid passing near Anatahan. Although the EMO said that the volcano is not currently dangerous to most aircraft within the CNMI airspace, it said that conditions might change rapidly. It advised aircraft to pass upwind of Anatahan or beyond 10 nautical miles downwind from the island and exercise due caution within 10 nautical miles.
The first historical eruption of Anatahan began on May 10, 2003, after hundreds of years of dormancy. It sent ash to over 30,000 feet and deposited about 10 million cubic meters of material over the island and sea, according to the USGS and the EMO.
