At Least 12 Die as Volcano Erupts in Japan : Disaster: A former UC Santa Barbara researcher is among dozens missing.

A volcano belched searing gases, ash and hot rocks onto a small community in southwestern Japan on Monday, killing as many as 12 people and setting dozens of homes ablaze.

About three dozen people were unaccounted for, including 16 journalists as well as policemen, firefighters and researchers who had been monitoring the volcanic flow.

Among the missing researchers was Harry Glicken, 33, formerly of UC Santa Barbara, who narrowly escaped death in the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state.

Glicken, who also worked for the U.S. Geological Survey, had been scheduled to be on an observation post at Mt. St. Helens the day the mountain blew up, but he happened to switch shifts with another man, who died along with more than 50 others in the eruption.

Officials at Tokyo Metropolitan University, where Glicken held a temporary post while seeking a permanent position, said he had headed for Mt. Unzen on June 2. He and a French husband and wife photography team had been making daily appearances at a research site near the mountain, the officials said.

The French couple also were reported missing.

Japanese officials said the fires and risk of further eruptions made it impossible for them to search the area to determine the death toll.

Kyodo News Service said a 25-year-old policeman was killed in his patrol car as he tried to warn residents to leave.

A military rescue helicopter spotted 11 bodies near a river early today, Kyodo and television reports said.

The bodies could not be retrieved because of their proximity to the broiling debris that also injured 20 people.

“There is no guarantee that another flow of this scale will not occur again,” said Daisuke Shimozuru, chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions. “But it is nearly impossible to say when or where.”

The area was jolted by 11 earthquakes Monday night, the Meteorological Agency reported today. White clouds boiled up hundreds of yards into the sky, and television reports showed parts of the mountain still afire from lava flows.

The volcano caused landslides and tidal waves that killed 15,000 people when it erupted nearly 200 years ago--Japan’s worst volcanic disaster. It is among 19 active volcanoes in Japan listed as dangerous and kept under constant surveillance.

Authorities ordered 5,000 people evacuated from the area Monday after the volcano began erupting.

Scientists watching the volcano said the torrent rushed down a ravine at speeds up to 125 m.p.h. Monday afternoon. White clouds boiled up hundreds of feet above the flow.

After dark, fires still were burning in homes and patches of forest, and a new eruption was reported before midnight. Gray ash covered the area.

Mt. Unzen, in Nagasaki prefecture 610 miles southwest of Tokyo, erupted Nov. 17 for the first time in 198 years. It erupted again Feb. 12.

Lava recently approached the village of Kamikoba, leading to a number of temporary evacuations, but Monday was the first time it reached homes in the community, said Fumiyasu Tokunaga of the fire department in Shimabara, a nearby city of 45,000.

Glicken had been an assistant researcher in geological sciences while working on his doctorate at UC Santa Barbara, university officials said. He left the university to go to Japan last summer. His parents live in Los Angeles. His father, Milton Glicken, said he had not heard from his son in several weeks.

“For a young guy, he’s seen a lot of active volcanoes,” said Dick Janda, U.S. Geological Survey research geologist, who supervised Glicken’s work at at Mt. St. Helens. “He’s a guy with considerable international stature for his age.”