Mount Aso, Japan鈥檚 most active volcano, erupts
No injuries or damage has yet been reported at the popular tourist destination.
Smoke spews from the eruptive crater of Mount Aso as police officers and firefighters conduct an evacuation operation there.
Kyodo/Reuters
A mile-high plume of ash and smoke is hovering above Japan鈥檚 Mount Aso, which erupted without warning early on Monday morning.聽
Located on Japan鈥檚 southernmost island of Kyushu, Mount Aso is the country鈥檚 most active volcano and a popular tourist hiking destination, with its highest peak reaching more than 5,000 feet.
Japan鈥檚 Meteorological Agency said that there are or injuries, reports Japan Today. A small number of people in the parking lot near the peak of the mountain were safely evacuated this morning, while police were checking on the trails at the time of the eruption.
"We suddenly saw an unusually massive plume rising in the air," Kimihiko Jo, an Aso official, told Agence France-Presse.
"The black and grey column at one point appeared to be weakening, but ," he said.
The meteorological agency , one of the five peaks that that make up Mt. Aso, to level 3 on the scale of 5, which means that people should not approach the mountain. It warned of danger from falling rocks and smoke from the plume.
Mount Aso has one of the world鈥檚 largest calderas, a depression 鈥� about 12 miles in diameter in Aso's case 鈥� that formed over tens of thousands of years by giant eruptions that forced a former volcano chamber to collapse. The mountain鈥檚 active volcano peaks are in the .
Aso has also produced more explosive eruptions than in the world. It is located on the so-called Ring of Fire, the horseshoe-shaped, highly volcanic region of the Pacific Ocean basin聽that is home to 75 percent of the world鈥檚 volcanoes and 90 percent of the world鈥檚 earthquakes.
Officials have asked people , or about 2.5 miles, around the volcano, mostly populated by restaurants and a museum, but not houses, reports Nikkei Asian Review.
All flights from nearby Kumamoto Airport have been canceled or re-routed.
Mt. Aso have been active since last year. In August, the meteorological agency issued an alert after picking up increasing seismic activity at a volcano south of Aso. In September last year, Mount Ontake in central Japan erupted and killed 63 people in what was considered the deadliest volcanic eruption in the country since 1902.