Some Mt. Usu Evacuees Allowed to Go Home

About 4,800 people who left the area around Mt. Usu began returning to their homes near the volcano after evacuation orders were partially lifted Thursday.

About 8,200 other people must wait until their neighborhoods are declared safe, said Shinkichi Maki, a Hokkaido prefecture spokesman.

Since breaking its 22-year silence March 31, the volcano in northern Japan has erupted several times. But experts now say they do not expect a major eruption--at least for now.

Late Wednesday, a Meteorological Agency panel of volcanologists monitoring Mt. Usu reversed an earlier prediction of an imminent eruption. For the time being, only small bursts of steam are likely to continue, the panel said.

Kenichi Sugawara, a spokesman for Date, one of three affected municipalities near the volcano, said residents who have returned can stay home pending new signs of escalated activity.

Experts can predict a major eruption at least a day in advance, allowing time to evacuate, he said.

“But everyone has to stay alert,” he said.

No casualties were reported in the latest series of eruptions.

Usu, a snowcapped peak 475 miles north of Tokyo, is an extremely rare type of volcano in that its eruptions have been unusually predictable, volcanologist Hiromu Okada of Hokkaido University said when Usu began its latest round of activity.

Each of Usu’s seven major eruptions has been preceded by characteristic seismic swarms, and earthquakes have never been reported around the mountain except when it was about to erupt, he said.