Thousands of people are being evacuated in Papua New Guinea over the risk of a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific Island nation’s north.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said he had directed all relevant state resources to support the evacuation of people at risk on Kadovar Island in the East Sepik region.
He also warned northern coastal communities to be alert for possible tsunamis resulting from volcanic activity.
Mr O’Neill said: “Volcanoes are very unpredictable. We are hearing various reports that activity has been building up and we need to take all precautions to keep our people safe.
“We will not take risks with human lives. Let’s get people out of harm’s way now and constantly monitor the activity of the volcano.”
Flights in the area had been cancelled and shipping had been warned to stay away it was responding to the volcanic activity, he said.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported 3,000 people were being evacuated from Biem Island, seven miles west of Kadovar, where plumes of ash forced 700 people to evacuate in the past week.
Papua New Guinea sits on the “Pacific Ring of Fire” and experiences frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here