Sometimes they wake up

A volcano erupts in the Red Sea

On Sunday, the Yemeni island of Jabal al-Tair was rocked by an explosion. A column of flame, ash and smoke appeared above the 1200-meter mountain, rising 300 meters, and streams of hot lava rushed down the slopes. In principle, this all looks completely ordinary: an average, not particularly high volcano, not a very strong eruption, and the picture of the natural phenomenon itself is very standard, you could even put it in textbooks. The western part of the island is destroyed, which often happens during eruptions: when a lava bubble breaks to the surface under strong pressure, it can easily demolish part of the mountain.

There are only a couple of peculiarities: firstly, the Red Sea is not the most famous volcanic region in the world, and secondly, Jabal al-Tair (translated from Arabic as Bird Mountain) slept peacefully for more than 120 years until September of this year. Old-timers noted the last eruption on the island in 1883, after which the mountain ceased to remind of itself for a long time. The volcano’s sleep was so strong that in the 90s of the last century, when, apparently, everyone who remembered the eruption had passed on to another world, people appeared on Jabal al-Tair. True, there are no permanent residents on the island, but there is a Yemeni military base. The main problem arose with it, since it was not possible to evacuate all the soldiers in a timely manner.

When the eruption began, there were about 50 military personnel on the island. There is nowhere to hide from the lava: Jabal al-Tair is simply a mountain several kilometers wide protruding from the sea. The garrison issued a distress signal and most of the soldiers were taken to the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on a Canadian warship patrolling the area. However, at least eight soldiers died from severe burns, and several more were missing.

The tragedy might have been avoided, since the eruption of Jabal al-Tair was not a surprise. Seismically, this is not the safest region - the Red Sea itself is located on a large fault that stretches from Palestine to the south and reaches southern Africa. Tremors occur here, although particularly strong earthquakes, as a rule, do not occur in the region. And recently, several earth vibrations have occurred in the area of ​​the island, the most powerful of which reached 4.3 on the Richter scale. But even in this situation, no one imagined that the mountain would wake up and start throwing out fire and lava (however, there are big doubts that volcanologists have been to the Yemeni island recently).

There are no forecasts as to when Jabal al-Tair will fall silent again. Such eruptions can last for several days or weeks, gradually fading. In addition, after some time the lava eruption may repeat. In any case, the region has clearly added more attractions: crews and passengers of ships passing through the Strait of Aden will be able to observe the active volcano for some time.

Mikhail MANSKOY