TOKYO: Dozens of hikers were stranded yesterday on the slopes of an erupting Japanese volcano that has reportedly left more than 30 people seriously injured.
Ash, rocks and steam continued to spew from Mount Ontake more than nine hours after it sprang violently to life as around 250 people were trying to scale its peak. “I first thought it was thunder as I heard a bang and another bang, two or three times,” a trekker told public broadcaster NHK. “Then volcanic dust fell noisily.”
Amateur cameraman Keiji Aoki told Jiji Press: “It was tremendous. I prepared for death when I got caught in the dust under a pine tree.” A suffocating blanket of ash up to 20 centimetres deep covered a large area of the 3,067 metre (10,121-foot) volcano, trapping climbers and forcing up to 150 into mountaintop shelters at one point.
Around 230 people have now reached the bottom but around 40 are trapped at the summit where they will spend the night in shelters, local media reported.
AFP
