Ethiopia volcano erupts for first time in nearly 12,000 years: ‘It was like a sudden bomb’
A volcano in Ethiopia’s northeastern region has erupted for the first time in nearly 12,000 years, sending thick plumes of smoke up to nine miles into the sky, the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) said.
The Hayli Gubbi volcano, located in Ethiopia’s Afar region, about 500 miles northeast of Addis Ababa near the Eritrean border, erupted for several hours on Sunday.
The volcano, which rises about 1,500 feet above sea level, is in the Rift Valley, an area of intense geological activity where two tectonic plates meet.
Clouds of ash from the volcano drifted over Yemen, Oman, India and northern Pakistan, said the VAAC, which published a map of the ash cloud’s trajectory.
Simon Carn, a volcanologist and professor at Michigan Technological University, confirmed on Bluesky that the ash cloud was “propagating rapidly eastward in the subtropical jet stream, over the Arabian Sea, toward northwest India and Pakistan.”
Afar Government Communications Office via AP
In videos shared on social networks, which AFP was not immediately able to verify, we see a thick column of white smoke rising.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program said Hayli Gubbi had no known eruptions during the Holocene, which began about 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Carn confirmed on Bluesky that Hayli Gubbi “has no record of Holocene eruptions.”
A local administrator, Mohammed Seid, said there were no casualties, but the eruption could have economic implications for the local herding community.
Seid told The Associated Press that there was no evidence of an eruption from the Hayli Gubbi volcano and that he feared for residents’ livelihoods.
“Although no human lives or livestock have been lost so far, many villages have been covered in ashes and so their animals have little to eat,” he said.
The Afar region is prone to earthquakes and one resident, Ahmed Abdela, told the AP he heard a loud noise and what he described as a shock wave.
“It was like a sudden bomb was thrown with smoke and ashes,” he said.
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