ISLAND VOLCANO

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1931, Page 2

ISLAND VOLCANO

OUTBURST ON AMBRIM. ACTIVITY SINCE NAPIER EARTHQUAKE. A connection between the Hawke’s Bay earthquake disaster and the activity of Mount Benbow, the great active volcano on the island of Ambrim, in the New Hebrides group, is suggested in a letter received in Auckland from the Rev. Maurice Fra-ter, Presbyterian missionary on tile island of Paama, adjacent to Ambrim. When

Mr Fraterfvisited Ambrim last month

after another fierce outburst from Mount Benbow he learned from a local trader that simultaneously with the Hawke’s Bay disaster there was a renewal of volcanic activity on Ambrim, and it had continued intermittently ever since.

A vivid description of last month’s eruption of Benbow is given by Mr Frater in bis letter. He was on a beach of Paama with a party of natives, about to embark in a launch, when they were startled by a roar like thunder that made the isljand reel. “Instinctively all eyes were turned toward Benbow,” writes Mr Fraiter, “and there, in the light of the afternoon sun, were tremendous volumes of smoke an dash streaming out of the crater and ascending to a great height in the clear an<3 cloudless sky. Ambrim’s dreadful artillery was in action. The explosions succeeded each other with the rapidity of a machine-gun. The rapidity with which the ash and cinders were shot out of the crater converted the volcano into a huge hydro-electric machine and generated vast quantities of electricity. Around the dense cloud hovering over the volcano the lighting played, flash following flash in rapid succession, until the ether became charged like a gigantic battery.”

Next day Mr Frater visited Ambrim and found at Port Vato ash falling like hailstones. The branches of the breadfruit trees,' with their big, capacious leaves, were breaking under the weight of ash. So long, however, Have the natives been living under the grim shadow of Mount Benbow that they now regard a, fall of ash with as much composure as a shower of rain.