Garbuna Group

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Garbuna Group of volcanoes consists of three volcanic peaks, Krummel, Garbuna, and Welcker. The volcano is located at the southern end of the Willaumez Peninsula, just to the west of the town of Kimbe, in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

Until a few days ago, it was assumed that the Garbuna volcano was probably dormant, or perhaps extinct. The last eruption was believed to have occurred around 1300 AD, or 1,700 years ago.

However on 17 October 2005 the Garbuna volcano erupted without warning. Ash was reported 4000 m above the summit. An ash warning for aircraft was distributed by the Darwin office of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology on 19 October. Ash was apparently drifting to the northwest on 19 October and had contaminated some village water supplies.

Because Garbuna has not erupted for such a long time and because evidence from past eruptions indicates large amounts of tephra and lava were produced, this eruption is possibly a dangerous one. Garbuna is less than 20 km from Kimbe, the main urban centre of West New Britain and the location of an important palm oil industry.

In August 2002, the Pago volcano to the east of Kimbe erupted and caused 12,000 people to seek refuge in care centres. The Hoskins airport was closed for some time due to ash falls. This volcano was previously active in 1990.