The Hayli Gubbi volcano, located around 800 kilometres northeast of Addis Ababa near the border with Eritrea, remained active for several hours. Rising roughly 500 metres above the surrounding landscape, the volcano sits within the geologically active Rift Valley, where two tectonic plates meet.
Ash clouds from the eruption drifted across parts of Yemen, Oman, India, and northern Pakistan, the VAAC said, raising concerns for aviation and local communities.
Videos circulating on social media, which AFP could not immediately verify, show a dense column of white smoke rising from the volcano.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program notes that Hayli Gubbi has no recorded eruptions during the Holocene, which began around 12,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Simon Carn, a volcanologist at Michigan Technological University, confirmed on Bluesky that the volcano “has no record of Holocene eruptions.”
Local authorities in the Afar region have not yet responded to inquiries regarding potential casualties or the number of people displaced by the eruption.