News zu unseren Reisen

It started with several large explosive eruptions a bit out of nowhere: on 22 June, a powerful explosion occurred on the almost unknown Raikoke volcano, a tiny uninhabited island in the central-northern Kuriles. When we visited the place 3 weeks later during our first Kuriles expedition, a once green island had been transformed into a hell of ash with no living thing left, truly an image of apocalypse.
A week later, Ulawun volcano in New Britain (Papua New Guinea) produced a large paroxysm and a second one on 3 Aug, sending ash plumes to almost 20 km into the atmosphere. These eruptions certainly rank among the biggest in recent decades. They even ejected enough aerosols into the high stratosphere to cause unusual sunsets in the northern hemisphere, often visible even now. [less]