Japanese island grows nine times after volcanic eruption

Tokyo, Nov 19 (IANS/EFE) The remote Japanese island of Nishinoshima has grown to almost nine times its original size as lava emitted continuously by a volcano that erupted a year ago continues to add to its land mass, the Japanese Coast Guard reported Wednesday.

According to data released by the authorities, the island is now 8.6 times larger than when the volcano first erupted Nov 20, 2013.

The latest measurements indicate that around the middle of October, Nishinoshima measured 0.93 miles from east to west and about 1.06 miles from north to south.

Last year's volcanic explosion formed a new mass of land to the southeast of Nishinoshima that was provisionally named Niijima or Shinto, both of which mean "new island" in Japanese.

However, the new isle remained without an official name after the coast guard observed, in December 2013, that it had expanded further and was on the verge of merging with Nishinoshima.

The island now has a mass of about 1,766 million cubic feet and its highest point is about 328 feet above sea level.

Kenji Nogami from the Tokyo Institute of Technology explained that the volcano was producing about 5.3 million cubic feet of lava per day and that it has not yet been determined how long the activity would continue, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

The Japanese Coast Guard has advised seagoing vessels to keep a minimum distance of 3.7 miles from the coast of Nishinoshima due to the possibility of fresh eruptions on the sea bed.

--IANS/EFE

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