On the night of April 11, the Shiveluch volcano erupted in Kamchatka, throwing a column of ash 15–20 km high. The closest settlement to the volcano, the village of Klyuchi, was covered with ash. The layer thickness reaches 6–8 cm.
The last time Klyuchi was so heavily covered in ash was in 1964, director of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Ozerov told Kommersant. The village is located 50 km from Shiveluch.
Several more settlements in the Ust-Kamchatsky and Milkovsky districts of the Kamchatka Territory suffered from the ashes. Traffic on the highway Milkovo – Klyuchi – Ust-Kamchatsk was stopped, classes in schools were canceled. Electricity went out in several villages, in addition, the ashes got into the water supply system, and dirty water comes out of the taps.
The ash cloud after the Shiveluch eruption stretched for 500 km to the northwest and continues to spread.
Shiveluch is one of the largest volcanoes in Kamchatka, its age is estimated at 60-70 thousand years. Structurally, it is divided into the Old Shiveluch volcano, the ancient caldera (basin) and the active Young Shiveluch volcano, the height of the lava dome of which reaches 2500 m.