A volcano in Ethiopia's north-eastern Afar region has erupted for the first time in nearly 12,000 years, sending ash clouds drifting across the Red Sea towards Yemen and Oman. The Hayli Gubbi volcano, located about 500 miles north-east of Addis Ababa near the Eritrean border, erupted on Sunday for several hours, producing plumes of smoke up to 9 miles (14km) high.
Local official Mohammed Seid reported no casualties but warned of economic implications for livestock herders in the area. “While no human lives and livestock have been lost so far, many villages have been covered in ash and as a result their animals have little to eat,” he said. Seid noted there was no previous record of an eruption at Hayli Gubbi.
The volcano rises about 500 metres in altitude and sits within the Rift Valley, a zone of intense geological activity where two tectonic plates meet. Ash clouds drifted over Yemen, Oman, India and northern Pakistan, according to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC).
Resident Ahmed Abdela described hearing a loud sound and feeling a shock wave. “It felt like a sudden bomb had been thrown with smoke and ash,” he said. Videos shared on social media, which AFP could not immediately verify, showed a thick column of white smoke rising.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program stated that Hayli Gubbi has had no known eruptions during the Holocene, which began about 12,000 years ago. Simon Carn, a volcanologist at Michigan Technological University, confirmed on Bluesky that the volcano “has no record of Holocene eruptions.”
