Vulkaan Manaro op eilandenstaat Vanuatu barst uit

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Vanuatuanen vluchten vanwege vulkaan

As, vuur, lava en veel rook zijn te zien op beelden die zijn gemaakt van een uitbarstende vulkaan op Ambae, een van de eilanden die hoort bij de tropische eilandengroep Vanuatu.


De vulkaan, Manaro geheten, rommelt al sinds 2005, maar de autoriteiten denken dat het binnenkort weleens tot een grote uitbarsting kan komen. Om die reden is de alarmfase op het eiland verhoogd en zijn 6000 van de ongeveer 10.000 eilandbewoners geëvacueerd.

De evacués moeten op het eiland blijven. Ze worden naar veilige delen op het oosten en westen van het eiland gebracht. De autoriteiten sturen een schip met hulpgoederen naar het eiland.

De eilandengroep Vanuatu ligt ten oosten van Australië in de Stille Oceaan. Het land bestaat uit tachtig eilanden waarop zo'n 280.000 mensen wonen. In 2015 werden de Vanuatuanen zwaar getroffen door orkaan Pam, bijna alle huizen op de eilanden werden toen verwoest.

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Vulkaan barst uit op Vanuatu: duizenden geëvacueerd
Op de eilandenstaat Vanuatu, ten oosten van Australië in de Stille Oceaan, is de noodtoestand uitgeroepen. Een vulkaanuitbarsting heeft de helft van de bevolking van het eiland Ambae gedwongen om toevlucht te zoeken tot nabijgelegen dorpen. De autoriteiten bereiden zich voor op een ergere uitbarsting. Mogelijk wordt het hele eiland geëvacueerd, meldt Radio New Zealand.

De vulkaan Manaro in het midden van het eiland is al weken actief. Sinds het weekend is die activiteit sterk verhoogd met uitbarstingen. Een groot deel van Ambae ligt onder as.

Circa 5.000 dorpsbewoners van het noorden en zuiden van het eiland zijn geëvacueerd naar het oosten en westen, in kampen van het rampenbeheer van Vanuatu.

,,Tot dusver heeft de vulkaan as en donkere rook uitgespuwd, met een beetje lava", vertelt Manuel Amu, de voorzitter van het rampenbeheercomité, aan de radiozender. Volgens die zender groeit de schrik bij de geëvacueerden omdat er steeds minder onderdak overblijft. Daarnaast maakten omwonenden melding van luidere uitbarstingen.

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ironmantle twitterde op woensdag 27-09-2017 om 10:28:16 If eruption of Ambae in Vanuatu goes from current level 4 to a 5 its gonna get ugly fast. #volcano #startswimming… https://t.co/6kimNBjPWt reageer retweet

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Volcanic activity at Ambae is continuing to increase. The Alert Level for Ambae volcano is raised from Level 3 to Level 4 .
This means that the Ambae volcano is in a moderate eruption state . At this Alert Level, the volcanic activity is likely to continue to increase or decrease to its normal level of unrest at any time. Danger is in the Red, Grey, Orange and White dotted Zones (See map below).

With this situation, flying rocks and volcanic gas will affect the Red Zone which is about 6.5 km radius from Manaro Voui . Villages located in the Grey and Orange Zones will expect unusual volcanic hazards and ash falls can be expected around the island especially in villages exposed to prevailing trade winds direction, White Zone dotted . Acid rain may also be expected in that zone. Acid rain cause foliage fumigation hence damage garden crops.
It’s very important that authorities, communities, villages, visitors and travel agencies seriously consider this information.

The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department will continue to closely monitor this volcano activity. More information will be provided as soon as necessary.

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Vanuatu orders total evacuation of island with rumbling volcano

Officials in Vanuatu have ordered the complete evacuation of an island in the Pacific archipelago where a rumbling, belching volcano is threatening to erupt.
Boats were due to begin ferrying residents off Ambae island, which is home to about 11,000 people, in a process expected to take about a week. The Manaro volcano has been increasingly active for a week or more, raising fears of a major eruption.
Government spokesman Hilaire Bule said on Thursday that ministers decided they could not risk people's lives and so ordered the compulsory evacuation. Previously, people had been evacuated to other areas on the island itself.

Ambae resident Lilian Garae said she could see "smoke coming out from the hills" and hear regular booming noises from the volcano. She said she was waiting to hear when she might have to leave her home and where she might be sent.
Ambae is about 154 square miles (400 sq km), making it a little larger than the city of Detroit. It is one of about 65 inhabited islands in the Pacific nation about a quarter of the way from Australia to Hawaii.

The activity measure of the volcano was raised last weekend to Level 4, on a scale in which Level 5 represents a major eruption, and an emergency was declared on Monday.
New Zealand's military flew a plane over the volcano on Tuesday, and said huge columns of smoke, ash and volcanic rocks were billowing from the crater.

Some residents have left the island voluntarily. For them, it is a waiting game to see whether the volcano erupts or returns to normal activity that is not a threat. Officials say they have no real way of predicting what the volcano will do next and that evacuees will just have to wait it out.
Mr Bule said the evacuation will be carried out by boat and continue until October 6. He said residents will be moved on to nearby islands. Officials are setting up two sites on Pentecost Island, he said, where evacuees will be housed in government buildings or in temporary campsites.

Ambae island has long been volcanically active. A previous eruption in 2005 forced about 3,300 people to temporarily leave their homes and relocate elsewhere on the island, but did not lead to an evacuation of the island itself.
Dickinson Tevi, a spokesman for the Vanuatu Red Cross Society, said the relief agency has been shipping water and shelter equipment to Ambae island.

"People are quite afraid with the sound of rumbling going on," he said. "They are very uncertain and afraid."
Mr Bule said the government had allocated 200 million vatu (£1.4 million) towards the evacuation effort and was deploying 60 police officers to help people leave and to ensure there was no looting.

"We've prepared for cyclones by putting evacuation centres on the island but we are not ready for a volcanic eruption," he said. "The government has to put a policy in place to cater for this in the future."
Vanuatu's Meteorology and Geohazards Department has previously warned that people nearest to the volcano face the biggest risk from airborne rocks and volcanic gas and that acid rain could damage crops across a broader area.

Vanuatu is home to about 280,000 people and is prone to natural disasters, with half a dozen active volcanoes as well as regular cyclones and earthquakes. It sits on the Pacific's "Ring of Fire", the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanoes are common.

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Island of no return: Vanuatu evacuates entire population of volcanic Ambae
Thousands of south Pacific islanders will leave for permanent resettlement, government says, as Manaro spews ash 30cm deep

Thousands of south Pacific islanders at the mercy of an active volcano will be permanently resettled by the end of May, the Vanuatu government has said.

Ambae Island is home to 11,000 people, and for the second time in six months Ambae’s Manaro volcano on top of Mount Lombenben has started rumbling, spewing torrents of ash and gas from its crater and burying vegetable plots and crops, causing breathing and health problems for locals, and threatening their lives and livelihoods.

People living in the north, west and south of the island are worst affected by the ash and began being evacuated on Thursday after a state of emergency was declared on Tuesday.

Ash as deep as 30cm had already settled on many parts of the island, and people were experiencing breathing difficulties, skin reactions and illnesses such as chest infections as they waited to leave.

One Ambae resident, Nadia Kanegai, said islanders were frightened and could not wait to get away.

“The ashfall, like part of west Aambae was covered and it was dark [because] of the smoke and the population there was remaining inside and could not come outside,” she told RNZ Pacific.

“And there was a gas emission as well. So the people are scared.”

A local priest said the situation was “desperate” for locals as food supplies and animal feed were beginning to run out, water was contaminated by ash and disease was spreading among the evacuees, most of whom are subsistence farmers.

Police and some aid agencies are already in place, with the army expected to arrive later this week to orchestrate the mass evacuation which this times looks to be permanent.

“In times like these, it is always the vulnerable sections of our communities being the women, the children and the elderly, that are most affected,” Avio Roberts, national coordinator for the Vanua’aku party, told the Vanuatu Daily Post newspaper.

Negotiations are under way between landowners and central government to acquire land for Ambae evacuees on either Maewo or Pentecost – the two closest islands to Ambae, but a safe distance from the volcano, which is one of the most active in the world.

“People’s lives must be our first priority,” said prime minister Charlot Salwai during the October evacuation, in which planes, ships and barges were used in the DIY effort.

Vanuatu is no stranger to natural disasters, and the the south Pacific nation was rated the most at-risk country in the world in a 2016 UN study.

Its 83 islands are stuck in the middle of hurricane alley and they dot the border of the “ring of fire” – a belt around the Pacific prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The Australian government provided AU$3.2m to support early recovery efforts for those affected by the Ambae volcano last year, and is ready to give further assistance, a spokesperson said. The New Zealand government has provided more than NZ$1.5m in assistance, as well as technical support and relief supplies.