back to article Blofeld's Japanese volcano base erupts

The Japanese are certainly having a rough time of it, and following last Friday's devastating magitude 9.0 earthquake, Shinmoedake volcano on the southern island of Kyushu erupted yesterday. The volcano had been dormant for 52 years until showing signs of stirring in January. It's currently spewing ash and rock some 6,000ft …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Do a George Lucas...

    They could film the volcano actually erupting and edit out the crappy special effects of the eruption from the original film and insert the new footage and re-release it as an up to date re-imaged edition.

    Hey it works for George Lucas who has been introducing minor edits to the star wars films and punting them out to an eager audience for the last thirty years or so.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      The thought did occur that ILM's bods will be poring over tsunami footage

      ready for Roland Emmerich's next go at destroying the world

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Better yet

      Replace the lava with Hand-held radios, ala ET.

  2. Smallbrainfield
    Coat

    I expect this is why Blofeld is struggling

    to find a buyer on e-Bay, his record as a criminal mastermind notwithstanding.

    1. Tigra 07
      Thumb Up

      RE: Smallbrainfield

      Brilliant Seller, will buy again A+++++++++++

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    our thoughts are with you all!

    Bloody hell, those poor sods have had it rough, is this the final kick in the teeth for our friends in Japan?

    Hope so, our thoughts go out to everyone there

    1. Anton Ivanov
      Badgers

      Not yet

      Time to reread "Japan Sinks" AKA "The Death of the Dragon" (the name in most non-English translations) by Sakyo Komatsu.

      If my memory serves me right (I read it 30 years ago) it started very very similarly...

    2. V 3

      Minor diversion

      I was down on the slopes of the volcano a month ago filming the eruption with a film crew.

      Compared to what is going on in the north, it is a tiny, minor diversion of almost no significance, but it is not helping the local economy, already hit by recent outbreaks of foot and mouth, and bird-flu.

    3. DAN*tastik

      @ our thoughts

      you mean "Hope not", right?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next disaster will be ....

    A plague of locusts....?

    If I knew more about Shinto I'd probably seek an analogy from that religion but as it is I'll have to settle for the Bible.

    I suspect that the Geologists were anticipating something like this to happen.

    Yellowstone isn't on the same fault line is it.... Gulp!!

    What the name of that little Island in the Altantic that could, if it were to slip into the sea, devastate much of western Europe and East coast American seaboards?

    1. JanMeijer

      Possibly La Palma

      Spanish island, in front of Marocco's coast. Check the wikipedia article for the tsunami scaremongering stories. They appear to have been debunked though.

      1. Anton Ivanov
        Go

        Debunked or not, US geological survey is there

        Dunno about debunking, but the ridge of Cumbre Viejo is studded with automated GPS telemetry owned by US geological survey. Also, if you just see the slopes and the size of the caldera (formed by a similar landslide 2M years ago) over there you may concede that the scaremongers may have a point.

        It is one of my favourite holiday destinations while it is still there. The place is off the scale for people who want a quiet holiday amids nature.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      La Palma

      "What the name of that little Island in the Altantic that could, if it were to slip into the sea, devastate much of western Europe and East coast American seaboards?"

      The name you're looking for is La Palma, although the risk of this island collapsing into the sea seems dubious.

    3. Spanners Silver badge
      Alert

      La Palma

      According to the TV articles and tabloid science La Palma has the potential to do the USA a lot of harm.

      The TV programme I saw seemed to say very little about the harm it would do to Europe, but that might have been wishful thinking on the part of the presenter,

    4. tony2heads
      Alert

      re: next disaster will be:

      La Palma is a danger for Tsunamis in the atlantic

      (I do not plan to go on holiday to the Canaries)

  5. Skizz

    I've not read anywhere but...

    the Japanese earthquake is on the same fault line as the New Zealand one that happened recently, known as the "Ring of Fire". This line goes north from Japan, accross to Alaska and down the west coast of the USA. Hold on tight California!

    1. Adam-the-Kiwi

      Re: I've not read anywhere but...

      Er, well, yeah, but only in the sense that every fault that borders the pacific plate is, technically, part of the same plate boundary. Given that there aren't any plates that exist entirely within another, every fault on the earth is, techically, connected to every other...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've not read anywhere but...

      The "Ring of Fire Fault Line" you're referring to is a rough line of faults - not one single fault. It's really just a handy name that broadcasters can use to avoid explaining the details; evocative, scary, and ultimately meaningless. There are many faults just in California alone (see http://www.data.scec.org/faults/faultmap.html for a view of some of them). I'd hate to try and count all of the other faults that make up the "Ring".

      For the most part, these faults interact in much the manner of loosely-connected springs - a major change in one could well affect another down the chain... but the farther you go, the more difficult it is to say how significant the affects really are.

      California is in more immediate danger from tsunamis than from any sort of "Domino Effect" of earthquakes triggering each other along those faults all the way from Japan.

      Besides, Murphy's Law implies that when "The Big One" happens in California, LA will remain but everything EAST will slide into the Atlantic. ;)

  6. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Alert

    Ok, if this goes on then 2012 _is_ SHTF time.

    Do we have positive superposition in the biorythms of "eventful times" stuff?

    I wouldn't be utterly suprised at a meteorite hit come Friday.

  7. Thomas 4
    Unhappy

    One worrying thought occurs

    If this is in fact tied to the earthquake last week, would it herald further eruptions from other Japansese volcanoes?

  8. Terrence Bayrock
    Alert

    And yet more to come...??

    Would now be about the right time for Godzilla and associated friends to show up?

    Seriously though , my heart go out to the Japanese in these trying times.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Oh come on Universe! Give 'em a break!

    Poor buggers, what next? An Asteroid?

    1. Stevie

      Ha!

      Aiee! Gojira!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    On the bright side

    This is one disaster that can't be blamed on AGW.

    1. John Arthur
      Thumb Down

      Oh, yes it can!

      Just look at Counting Cats:

      http://www.countingcats.com/?p=9316

      I think prostitutes should sue for being lumped together with these guys.

  11. Guido Esperanto

    titlegeist

    This whole drama seems to be unfolding like a version of Sim City. I think all thats needed to really put the icing on this disaster clusterfuck is for Godzilla to rise from the depths to fight some tentacled monster in the middle of tokyo.

    I certainly dont make light of whats happening over in the far east but the parallels with some ethereal sim city owner are astounding.

  12. lawndart

    says:

    Shinmoe-Dake is part of the Kirishima volcano complex and was erupting as recently as last month, so this is probably more of a continuation of last month's activity. In Japan both Kirishima and Sakurajima have been erupting this year.

    Don't forget that there are around fifty volcanoes erupting on the Earth at any one time. For Japan the timing is rotten, but there you are.

    A good source of volcano news is Erik Klemetti's Eruptions site:

    http://bigthink.com/blogs/eruptions

  13. G C M Roberts
    Coat

    I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet

    Clearly Stephen Fry and the QI elves are a force to be reckoned with.

  14. E 2

    This is par for the course in Kyushu

    This volcano is located in a large complex of volcanoes in central Kyushu. There are often several active volcanoes in the complex.

    The city of Kagoshima (approx 750K people IIRC), in southern Kyushu, is located about 10 Km from Sakura-jima volcano, which is active. I've been there, you can rent bicycles in the city, take a fery to the volcano, and ride around it's periphery along the shoreline. It is an interesting 40 Km ride I must say, especially downwind of the cinder cones: the air is full of SO2 and ash falls like a winter blizzard.

    It *looks* like another huge blow to the country, but this kind of volcanic eruption happens all the time in Japan, and nobody gets terribly exercised about them.

    The real problem is in the tsunami zone, this volcano is a mosquito bite.

  15. E 2

    @Anton Ivanov

    How else would a disaster novel located in Japan start?!?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    populous / sim city

    blimey. it's like someone has been pressing all the catastrophe buttons in the menu bar.

  17. E 2
    Joke

    @La Palma

    No no, I think you mean the UK!

  18. phuzz Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Japan?

    I was told that the interior of the volcano was filmed on Corfu, in the sulphur deposits there.

    (as in, the interior of the caldera, I'm guessing the actual inside of the base was filmed in Pinewood)

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