The ferry placidly made its way across the stretch of water towards the island dwarfed by Mt Sakurajima. We joined the other passengers on the deck, and gazed at the volcano that seemed to grow as we approached, its vast bulk rising in a rough cone, the crater obscured by haze and vapour emissions that lingered as a mushroom cloud. Disembarking, we climbed into our coach that drove down the ramp and on to the island. Our efficient guide, Mayumi-san clucked as she found two of her passengers missing, and stalked down to glare out of the door, as the offenders made their way shamefaced to their seats. Mollified, Mayumi-san smiled, her face lighting up again, as she launched into a staccato Japanese commentary. The road went around the volcano in a complete circumambulation, bringing us eventually back to where the ferry would take us back to the mainland.
We passed several dwellings and other buildings, which were covered by a layer of gray ash as a result of the recent activity of the volcano. It was difficult to imagine that people actually lived in the shadow of this mighty volcano that had become active recently. We drew up at an observation point, and after the usual admonishments from Mayumi-san about the time we could spend looking around, and when we should report back to the coach, we walked up to an observation point. I had started to take some photographs, when someone exclaimed loudly in Japanese, alarm evident in his voice. We looked around, and there, just above the volcano, partly obscured by a dense band of white billowing cloud of vapour, we saw rising a dark, almost black plume of ash. With disconcerting speed, the plume kept growing and growing, as I kept taking pictures. Soon the plume had grown to gigantic proportions, dwarfing even the great volcano. The volcano was about a mile high, which meant that, within a span of about thirty seconds, the plume had grown about two miles high, the crest expanding outwards into a menacing mushroom cloud. I felt my hands go clammy, and I furtively looked around at the guide and the others. They too seemed arrested by the sight of the ominous dark plume of volcanic emission that threatened to blot out the sky. This massive cloud had grown to the accompaniment of what sounded like distant explosions, which was indeed the case, as the sounds reached us much after the cloud had grown rapidly, and probably came from deep within the innards of the great volcano.
Even the redoubtable Mayumi-san with her cheery disposition, seemed thoughtful, as we made our way back to the coach, to resume our journey. Frankly, we would have been glad if the coach turned around to return to the ferry boarding point, but, to our surprise the coach continued on its predetermined path around the island. I kept glancing at the volcano, to check whether fresh eruptions were happening. The huge emission cloud had started to spread, and soon covered the afternoon sky, making the light change, and it appeared to grow dark. We went past dense vegetation covered with ash, which was everywhere. The road was thick with gray deposits of ash, and the tracks of the vehicles that went ahead could be clearly seen etched into the ash deposits. Soon, we were back into the spirit of the excursion, and listening for Mayumi-san’s instruction whenever we approached a place of interest.
After a while, Mayumi-san said something, pointing agitatedly in the direction of the great volcano. We craned our necks to get a better view, and saw another angry plume of black ash issue forth in a plume that rapidly grew even larger than the earlier one, seeming to grow and grow, until we started to think: Ok, this is it; this is the big one! Wish we were somewhere else! Just as we noticed that even the cheerful expression of Mayumi-san had started to look strained at the edges, the gigantic billowing mushroom cloud of ash appeared to slow down and started to spread out. Once it was clear that this was so, Mayumi-san’s natural positive attitude asserted itself, and she was all smiles again, prattling away in Japanese, her relief writ large on her happy face.
By this time, the windscreen wipers of the coach were fighting a losing battle trying to keep the field of vision of the driver free of ash, which coated all windows in a thick opaque layer. The interior of the coach grew dark, and the lights had to be switched on. We returned to the ferry point at a steady but much slower pace than we had set out earlier. Once the coach had driven on to the ferry, we disembarked to rush up the stairs to the top deck to get a good look at Sakurajima, as we pulled away towards the mainland. When we disembarked at the ferry point on the mainland, and looked back at the brooding volcano now seemingly far away across the bay, we realized with a shock that when Sakurajima did erupt with full fury, the city of Kagoshima across the bay, which would be directly in its path of destruction.
This encounter with the volcano brought home powerfully to us the titanic forces of nature, that we tend to forget or discount, imagining that we have defences that would come to our help. When a volcano erupts, or a tsunami hits, or an earthquake happens, it is best to be somewhere else, far away from the scene! We were reminded of Bill Bryson’s words towards the end of his magisterial book A Short History of Nearly Everything, where he says that, going by past events, we are overdue for the next life extinguishing planetary cataclysm!
