Scientists term Ring of Fire's volcanic activity as normal


FE Online Desk | Published: January 25, 2018 20:06:27


Scientists term Ring of Fire's volcanic activity as normal

Tens of thousands of people have had their lives disrupted in the past week by seismic and volcanic activity along the Ring of Fire.

An earthquake off Alaska, an avalanche and volcanic eruption in central Japan and a volcano squirting lava in the Philippines all occurred within days of each other.

It led the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction to send a tweet on Tuesday warning that the Ring of Fire was "active".

Many are asking whether there is cause for concern that something more serious might happen.

The Ring of Fire refers to a string of volcanoes, earthquake sites and tectonic plates around the Pacific.

It spreads across 40,000km (25,000 miles) from the southern tip of South America all the way to New Zealand.

Roughly 90 per cent of all earthquakes occur along the area and the ring is dotted with 75 per cent of all active volcanoes on Earth, that's 452 individual active volcanoes.

This week alone, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska in the US. The quake briefly triggered a tsunami warning for coastal areas of Alaska and British Columbia in Canada.

On the same day, one soldier was killed and at least 11 others injured in central Japan by an avalanche that may have been triggered by a volcanic eruption.

The eruption of Mount Moto-Shirane, which is part of Mount Kusastsu-Shirane, also sent rocks raining down a kilometre-wide area near Kusatsu in central Japan, local media reported.

Earlier last year, the eruption of Bali's Mount Agung led to the closure of the city's international airport and forced up to 100,000 people to evacuate.

Mount Sinabung, more than 3,000km away in Sumatra, Indonesia, had been dormant for 400 years before it began erupting again in 2010.

In 2016, at least seven people died after clouds of hot ash and gas consumed the region.. Sinabung began erupting again in 2017 and is still going.

And Mount Kadovar, a volcano in Papua New Guinea, has been spewing ash for weeks, causing the evacuation of thousands of people from nearby islands, reports BBC.

Share if you like