Technology & Science
Sakurajima Blasts 4.4-km Ash Column, Grounds 30 Flights in First Major Plume Since 2024
In the early hours of 16 Nov 2025, three eruptions from Sakurajima’s Minamidake crater lofted ash 4.4 km high—its tallest plume in 13 months—and forced Kagoshima Airport to cancel roughly thirty flights while authorities kept the alert at Level 3.
Focusing Facts
- Kagoshima Airport reported about 30 flight cancellations on 16 Nov 2025 because volcanic ash posed an engine-damage hazard.
- The Japan Meteorological Agency measured the ash column at 4.4 km, the first plume to exceed 4 km since 18 Oct 2024.
- The official alert remains Level 3 on a 5-point scale, prohibiting access to the volcano but stopping short of mandatory evacuations.
Context
Sakurajima erupting is hardly rare—its 1914 outburst even welded it to Kyushu—yet each high-plume event tests Japan’s densely woven transport network much as Eyjafjallajökull’s 2010 eruption paralysed European airspace. The 4.4 km column sits on the lower end of Sakurajima’s historical extremes (5.5 km in 2019, >8 km in 1914), but the immediate aviation reaction underscores a century-long trend: globalisation makes modest eruptions economically costly even when they cause no casualties. Japan’s post-1990s investment in real-time monitoring and tiered alert levels again proved adequate; the government neither raised the alert nor ordered evacuations, suggesting confidence in data-driven risk models. Long-range, these small calibrations matter: Kyushu sits on the Ryukyu Arc, where subduction has produced caldera-forming blasts roughly every few thousand years. Continuous low-level activity may relieve pressure—or mask build-up—so today’s 4 km plume could be read either as routine degassing or a prelude in a cycle spanning centuries. In 2125 historians may view 2020-30 as the decade Japan fine-tuned civil-volcanic protocols ahead of a larger eruption, perhaps of Fuji, whose last major blast in 1707 remains a ticking geological clock.
Perspectives
Japanese domestic press
e.g., Mainichi Shimbun — Portrays the multiple Sakurajima blasts as a routine, well-monitored episode, stressing JMA alert level-3 restrictions and the absence of injuries or damage. Reliance on official agencies and a local audience incentive to avoid panic or hurt tourism can lead to a matter-of-fact tone that underplays the eruption’s disruptive or visual drama.
Indian business-oriented/finance click-driven media
e.g., Mint, MoneyControl — Highlights “stunning video,” the 4.4-km ash plume and the 30 cancelled flights, framing the eruption chiefly as a dramatic event with economic fallout. Traffic-hungry portals often foreground spectacle and commercial impact, which can exaggerate the sense of crisis compared with on-the-ground assessments.
Regional/international Asian outlets outside Japan
e.g., Geo TV Pakistan, AsiaOne Singapore — Uses the eruption to underscore Japan’s status as one of the world’s most seismically active regions and the constant need for vigilance, noting past larger eruptions and air-travel disruption. Reporting from abroad may amplify Japan’s natural-hazard image to engage readers, potentially overstating broader regional risk despite the event fitting Sakurajima’s normal activity pattern.