Eritrea Volcano Disrupts East Africa Air Travel

Posted June 14th, 2011 at 10:00 am (UTC-5)
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The ash cloud from an erupting volcano in Eritrea is disrupting air travel in parts of East Africa.

Officials with Ethiopian Airlines says the company canceled flights to Djibouti, northern Ethiopia and the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Tuesday.

Earlier, Germany's Lufthansa canceled a flight from Eritrea's capital, Asmara, and a flight from Frankfurt to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

An agency that monitors volcanoes for the aviation industry says the Nabro volcano continued to erupt Tuesday, pushing dust into the atmosphere.

Initially, the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center said it was the nearby Dubbi volcano that had erupted.

Both volcanos are located in the East African Rift Valley region near Eritrea's border with Djibouti.

The eruption follows a series of medium-sized earthquakes that struck the Eritrea and Ethiopia region on Sunday. The U.S. Geological Survey says the biggest quake had a magnitude of 5.7.