ERUPTION AT AMBRYM

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2305, 7 September 1929, Page 7

ERUPTION AT AMBRYM

TERRIF TING EXPERIENCE (Per "Press Association), s Dunedin, Kept.. 0. Mr C<- R. Stringer, who is temporarily in; charge of the Presbyterian mission station at Ambrym, writing to the local secretary of tJie Presbyterian Missionary Union gives, some particulars of the eruption on the night of June 28. Mount Benbow, the volcanic coin;, lias a crater a mile long, three-quarters of*a mile wide and 2000 feet deep. This gigantic crater idled up and the lava then overflowed find travelled 11 mile s to Craig Cove, ’the burning stream being half a mile wide. Small valleys were tilled befor e the stream could spread out. Halfway to Craig’s * Cov e a stream left the main flow and reached the sea at a village.five miles away from the Cove. That, was the stream, that overwhelmed. . the .Seventh.‘Day Adventist Mission Station , , . Mr and Mrs Taylor'barely escaped and spent a. terrifying night 4n 'lllO bush. By th e morning of (Saturday the main stream had reached the Presbyterian mission station, destroying the mission house and church and covering the adjoining grounds to a depth of seven or eight feet. Two smaller vents started to blow out shortly after the main volcano action began. Tlie’hills on each sid e of th e valley spouted steam and columns of water, sloue and ashes wer e ejected to a height of GOO' feet from a depth of 10 fathoms in the deep cove.