A person being rescued from Mt. Ontake. Yahoo/AFP.
30 people have died in the volcanic eruption of Mt. Ontake in Japan. Yahoo/AFP. The victims were in "cardiac arrest" but that is only because doctors haven't been able to certify the deaths yet. Japan had to call off the rescue and recovery operation due to high level of sulfur gas in the area. 550 rescue workers had helped many of the people that had sheltered in cabins and other buildings in the area. The volcano deposited up to 8 inches of ash in the area. People were injured both by flying rocks and high temperature ash and fumes.
My Comment:
Sad news out of Japan, I was hoping there wasn't going to be any fatalities. The article did clear up why people were in the area though. Apparently it is a bit more built up then I thought it would be. It sounds like Mt. Ontake and the surrounding area is a fairly active tourist area, especially this time of year. It also sounds like there wasn't any warning for these people. Bad luck all around. It's fairly rare for people to die from volcanoes in the first place, let alone in a 1st world country like Japan. They have had bad luck with natural disasters lately, but being where they are on the ring of fire, these sort of things are inevitable.
Once again, I live in Wisconsin so the entire concept of mountains and volcanoes is a foreign one for me. I was in Japan once back when I was a kid but the closest I ever got to a mountain there was on the bullet train with Mt. Fuji in the distance. It was fairly impressive, but still, it's hard for me to conceptualize. Every other place in the world I have visited was just as flat as Wisconsin is.
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