ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A volcano erupted with little warning on a remote island in Alaska, sending residents of a nearby ranch fleeing from falling ash and volcanic rock.
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The Okmok Caldera erupted late Saturday morning, just hours after seismologists at the Alaska Volcano Centre began detecting a series of small tremors.
The explosion flung an ash cloud at least 15,000 metres high, said geophysicist Steve McNutt.
Local flights were cancelled.
Nine people, including three children, were at Fort Glenn, a private cattle ranch almost 10 kilometres south of the volcano on Umnak Island, located in the western Aleutians.
They managed to call authorities on a satellite phone before losing their connection, according to the Coast Guard, which had a cutter en route to the island, about 1,400 kilometres southwest of Anchorage.
The Coast Guard cutter was not expected to arrive until Sunday morning, said Petty Officer Lee Goldsmith. Because of the falling ash and rock, the Coast Guard could not send out any aircraft, he said.
Despite the conditions, the Fort Glenn residents were planning to use a small private helicopter to fly to nearby Unalaska Island, whose southwest end is separated from Fort Glenn by a eight-kilometre channel.
"They can only carry one person at a time in that helicopter," Goldsmith said.
Okmok is 96 kilometres west of the busy fishing port of Dutch Harbour on Unalaska Island. Ash was reported to be falling in the region, McNutt said.
Two planned flights from Unalaska were cancelled due to the eruption, said Jerry Lucas, a spokesman for PenAir, the primary airliner serving the area.
The 1,100-metre) volcano last erupted in 1997, according to McNutt. The volcano has shown signs of increased activity during the last few months, he said.
Previous eruptions have typically produced lava flows, but the volcano centre could not immediately determine if that was occurring in Saturday's explosion, McNutt said.
AP
