Remote Alaska volcano erupts, spewing rock and ash

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A volcano erupted Saturday with little warning on a remote island in Alaska, sending residents of a nearby ranch fleeing from falling ash and volcanic rock.The Okmok Caldera erupted late Saturday morning, just hours after seismologists at the Alaska Volcano Center began detecting a series of small tremors.The explosion flung an ash cloud at least 50,000 feet high, said geophysicist Steve McNutt.Nine people, including three children, were at Fort Glenn, a private cattle ranch six miles 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.A vessel responding to a Coast Guard request for emergency assistance managed to pick them up Saturday night, and the Coast Guard canceled plans to send its own cutter to the island, which is about 860 miles southwest of Anchorage.Coast Guard Petty Officer Lee Goldsmith said those at the ranch reported rock and ash falling around them.Okmok is 60 miles west of the busy fishing port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. Ash was reported falling in the region, McNutt said.Two planned flights from Unalaska were canceled in response to the eruption, said Jerry Lucas, a spokesman for PenAir, the primary airliner serving the area.The 3,500-foot 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 center could not immediately determine if that had occurred in Saturday's explosion, McNutt said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080713/ap_on_re_us/alaska_volcano

As in the days of Noah....