Volcano erupts on western Japanese island of Kyushu; regulators say no issues at nuclear plant

TOKYO: A volcano on Japan's major western island of Kyushu, called Sakurajima, erupted at about 8.05 pm on Sunday (Jul 24), the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, but media said there were no immediate reports of damage.

There were reports of volcanic stones raining down at a distance of 2.5km from the volcano, NHK public television said. The eruption alert level has been raised to 5, the highest, with some areas advised to evacuate, it added.

Sakurajima is one of Japan's most active volcanoes and eruptions of varying levels take place on a regular basis. In 2019 it spewed ash 5.5km high.

Video footage from Sunday's eruption showed what appeared to be a red mass flowing down one side of the volcano, with red projectiles shooting out while smoke, hard to see in the darkness, billowed up.

Most of the city of Kagoshima is across the bay from the volcano but several residential areas within about 3km of the crater may be ordered to evacuate, NHK said.

Japan's nuclear regulators said no irregularities had been detected at the Sendai nuclear power plant.

The nuclear facility on Japan's western major island of Kyushu is located around 50km northwest of the volcano. 

At around 10pm, or two hours after the eruption, a Japanese government spokesperson told reporters the government had not heard of any damage from the eruption.