#5 HODEIDA, Yemen (AFP) — At least four Yemeni soldiers were burned to death when a volcano erupted on a Red Sea island, sparking a major rescue operation on Monday for the rest of its garrison. Survivors evacuated to the Yemeni port city of Hodeida said the soldiers were killed outright when the volcano erupted on island of Jabal al-Tair, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away. "Four of our comrades have died, burned by the lava," said one soldier who was among the evacuees. "They were killed immediately after the eruption of the volcano at 5:30 pm (1330 GMT) on Sunday," another soldier told AFP.
The Canadian navy said the frigate HMCS Toronto joined the rescue mission at the request of the Yemeni coast guard. The vessel had been on its way to the Suez Canal on a NATO deployment when it received the request for assistance, the navy said. The Yemeni coast guard said that around 50 soldiers were on the island at the time of eruption. Most of the garrison was evacuated by the coastguard and the last three soldiers still unaccounted for were picked up the Canadian navy on Monday morning. "Some of them were wounded and have been taken to hospital," a military commander said.
There had been considerable seismic activity around the island ahead of the eruption, the Yemeni defence ministry said on its website. It said that an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale had been recorded on Friday. The 1,200 metre-high (3,937 feet) volcano last erupted in the 19th century, Saba quoted geologists as saying.
The CNN news channel broadcast footage of the eruption, showing the volcano spewing lava and ash. "It was extremely brilliant and quite bright," Ken Allen, a Canadian Navy spokesman onboard the HMCS Toronto, told CNN. "The closer we got to the area, the brighter it got. We could actually see the lava spouting... up into the sky", he said, adding that small boats were launched from the frigate to search for survivors. The Saba news agency said that "all necessary measures have been taken to ... follow the course of the eruption," adding that a team of volcanologists had been dispatched to the area.
The four square kilometre (1.54 square mile) island has been garrisoned by the Yemeni authorities since the 1990s when a longstanding territorial dispute with Eritrea over the ownership of a series of islands in the Red Sea erupted into armed clashes. The Permanent Court of Arbritration in The Hague eventually found in Yemen's favour and awarded it sovereignty over the islands. |
A volcano has erupted on a tiny island off the coast of Yemen, spewing lava and ash hundreds of feet into the air, a Canadian naval vessel near the island in the Red Sea reported Sunday. The Yemeni government asked NATO to assist in searching for survivors.