14 DAY TRIAL // On Thursday, seismologists announced that a surge in activity registered at Mount Redoubt in Alaska had prompted a widespread monitoring and observation effort on the part of all experts in the area. The volcano lies approximately 100 miles from the American state's most populous city, and there are concerns that a massive eruption could cast ash clouds and dangerous debris as far as the city itself, affecting the civilian population.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) said that experts who were monitoring the situation around-the-clock believed that the volcano could erupt anytime soon, in a time frame between a couple of days and a couple of weeks. There's no way to tell for sure when the catastrophe will happen, as scientists have no direct way of measuring the pressure build-up in the inner chambers of the mountain. When that pressure will peak and reach the maximum amount the rock above can withstand, it will erupt with incredible force and will throw ash, rock fragments and molten lava high into the atmosphere.
In the city of Anchorage, authorities already advised citizens to make ready for a potential disaster, and urged them to start stockpiling supplies and food, such as canned meat, non-perishable goods, plastic bags, respiratory aids and wind-washer fluid for their vehicles, in the event of an ash cloud affecting the city. During the last eruption of the mountain, in 1989, ash and mud flows continued to spill from its top for five consecutive months, affecting both land-based communities around the mountain and the international air traffic patterns of the region.
AVO reported that the levels of seismic activity in the region sparked unexpectedly on January 23rd, which prompted experts to move to a heightened state of alert. They say that, most likely, the mountain will erupt within a very short time span, and that the consequences will be fairly similar to those that were registered during the 1989-1990 spill.
Besides warning the general population of the danger, authorities also warned airline companies of the imminent eruption. Such incidents are very hazardous for planes, because, if they fly in an ash cloud, they have zero visibility, and a very high chance that the dense dust particles will clog the engines and cause them to stall, which would mean the collapse of the plane itself.