Volcano Erupts In Japan, Leaves Hundreds Stranded

A volcano in central Japan erupted on Saturday, injuring at least 40 people and leaving another seven missing. 

Mount Ontake erupted just before noon local time, sending a thick plume of ash into the sky on a clear fall day and causing people on the mountain to flee.

"It was like thunder," a woman told broadcaster NHK of the first eruption at the volcano in seven years. "I heard boom, boom, then everything went dark."

Over 250 people were initially trapped on the mountain, but most were able to make it down by Saturday night. The injured were still trapped in mountain lodges, because they were unable to descend 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake on their own, said Sohei Hanamura, a crisis management official in Nagano prefecture. Thirty-two people had serious injuries, including at least seven who lost consciousness.

Lodge managers were familiar with first aid procedures and were communicating with rescue officials in town, he said.

On the Gifu prefecture side of the mountain, 52 people were able to descend, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

The 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake sits on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures, on the main Japanese island of Honshu.

In a YouTube video shown on Japanese TV, shocked climbers can be seen moving quickly away from the peak as an expanding plume of ash emerges above and then engulfs them.

Mikio Oguro, an NHK journalist who was on the slope on an unrelated assignment, told the station that he saw massive smoke coming out of the crater, blocking sunlight and reducing visibility to zero.

"Massive ash suddenly fell and the entire area was totally covered with ash," he said by phone. He and his crew had to use headlights to find a lodge to take refuge.

"My colleagues later told me that they thought they might die," Oguro said.

Japan's meteorological agency raised the alert level for Mount Ontake to 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. It warned people to stay away from the mountain, saying ash and other debris could fall up to 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away.