Transcript
BRAD SCOTT: On that flight we flew over, initially, Lopevi. It's one of the volcanoes in volcanic unrest. The situation there was, the volcano was continuing to put out a lot of volcanic gas but the activity was neither increasing nor decreasing. It was just in a steady state. We then went on to Ambrym, a very large active volcano. The activity there was similar to Lopevi. It's in volcanic unrest. The activity was neither increasing nor decreasing. We saw the lava lakes in the summit crater but we couldn't really get a handle on whether the levels had gone up or down but they didn't really look changed. And then we went on to Ambae, which has been the volcano giving the most grief over the last couple of weeks, and there the activity was definitely declining. The volcanic eruption was starting to ramp down.
SALLY ROUND: Just describe what you saw that makes you understand that it is declining.
BS: At Ambae what we've been seeing for the previous week was two scoria cones active with lava fountaining and scoria eruptions and there was an active lava flow forming a fan that was building off the island into the lake and then on Friday the lava flow was all flowing but by Saturday the lava flow had stopped flowing and the scoria eruptions from the two little volcanic cones that had grown on the island, they'd also slowed down and one of the vents was just making some really small minor volcanic ash explosions. But the key thing was that the lava flow had stopped and also that the seismic energy had decreased over the previous sort of 20 to 30 hours. It was all indicative of the volcano slowing down.
SR: Could this be a temporary slowdown and things start up again?
BS: That's the traditional $64,000 question. The eruptions at Ambae traditionally only last around a month to a month and a half. This one's been going a bit over a month so if it's behaving like it has in the eruptions in 1966, 2005 and 2016, it is probably slowing down and stopping.
SR: So good news for the people of Ambae. Do you think they could be back on their island?
BS: Hopefully that's the potential outcome, yes.
SR: Are there any leftover dangers for them though with the ash and gas emissions?
BS: I'm not really in a position, unfortunately, now I've left there to be up to date on that. You'd have to check with the people in country.
SR: Could you tell the ash cover, what that was like?
BS: The explosions that were generating ash, the ash was only just falling on the volcanic island within Lake Voui. It was only being dispersed a few hundred metres so it was really self-contained to the summit crater.
