ISLAND VOLCANO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20987, 25 September 1931, Page 10

ISLAND VOLCANO.

OUTBURST ON AMBRIM. ACTIVITY SINCE NAPIER SHAKE. A connection between the Hawke's Bay earthquake disaster and the activity of Mount Benbow, the great active volcano on the island of Ambrim, in the New Hebrides group, is suggested in a letter received in Auckland from the Rev. Maurice Frater, Presbyterian missionary on the island of Paama, adjacent to Ambrim. When Mr. Frater visited Ambrim last month after another fierce outburst from Mount Benbow he learned from a local trader that simultaneously with the Hawkc's Bay disaster there was a renewal of volcanic activity ori Ambrim, and it had continued intermittently ever since. A vivid description of last month's eruption of Benbow is given by Mr. Frater in his letter. He was on a beach on Paama with a party of natives, about to embark in a launch, when they were startled by a roar like thunder that made the island reel. "Instinctively all eyes were turned toward Benbow," writes Mr. Frater, "and there, in the light of the afternoon sun, were tremendous volumes of smoke and ash streaming out of the crater and ascending to a great height in the clear and cloudless sky. Ambrim's I dreadful artillery was in action. The ex j plosions succeeded each other with the rapidity of a machine-gun. The rapidity with which the ash and cinders were shot out of tlie crater converted the volcano into a, huge hydro-electric machine and generated vast quantities of electricity. Around the dense cloud hovering over the volcano the lightning played, flash following flash in rapid succession, until the ether became charged like a gigantic battery." Ne.\t day Mr. Frater visited Ambrim and found at Port Yato ash falling like hailstones. The branches of the breadfruit trees, with their big capacious leaves, were breaking under the weight of ash. So long, however, have the natives been living under the grim shadow of Mount Benbow that they now regard a fall of ash with as much composure as a shower of rain.