Alaska volcano shoots lava up hundreds of metres

(AP) - Alaska's remote Pavlof Volcano has been shooting lava hundreds of feet into the air, but its ash plume is thinning and is no longer making it dangerous for airplanes to fly nearby.

Geologist Chris Waythomas of the Alaska Volcano Observatory says a narrow ash plume extends a couple of hundred miles south-east from the volcano, which is 1,000km south-west of Anchorage.

The eruption that began Monday seemed to be slowing on Saturday, but Waythomas says that could change at any time.

He says seismic tremors from the 2,518m volcano have been going up and down, but remain at a fairly high level.

Scientists are not expecting the eruption to end anytime soon but so far it has not been explosive. There are mud flows, but no people are close enough to be threatened.

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