Ash plumes from a volcanic eruption in Ethiopia covered parts of Pakistan and northern India on Tuesday, forcing Air India and Akasa Air to cancel some flights as a precaution.
The Hayli Gubbi volcano in Ethiopia’s Afar region erupted on Sunday for the first time in recorded history, sending ash plumes up to 14km into the sky, seismologists said.
The ash blanketed parts of Pakistan and northern India on Tuesday after crossing Yemen and Oman, according to tracking website Flightradar24, and was moving towards China.
The India meteorological department said earlier it was expected to clear Indian skies by 2pm.
Air India said it cancelled 11 flights on Monday and Tuesday to make precautionary checks on aircraft that had flown over some locations after the eruption after a directive to airlines from India’s aviation regulator.
Smaller peer Akasa said it scrapped scheduled flights to Middle East destinations including Jeddah, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi scheduled during the two days.
India’s ministry of civil aviation said only a few flights had been rerouted as a precautionary measure, and the airports authority had issued a notice to all affected planes.
Ethiopia has about 50 active volcanoes, Atalay Ayele, a seismologist and researcher at the Institute of Geophysics, Space Science and Astronomy at Addis Ababa University, told Reuters.
He said: “At any time the volcanoes can be active or show manifestations of activity.”
Reuters
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