Meet volcanologist Herman Patia

Robert Keith-Reid

“That,” says volcanologist Herman Patia “is a good question. It could, but should it go up again fast in a big way, we would detect it in time for a warning.”

Patia monitors and Tavurvur and other PNG volcanoes.

The topic under discussion one fine, calm morning at the volcanological observatory, high on the flank of North Daughter, an extinct volcano overlooking Rabaul's magnificent natural harbour, is Tavurvur.

Tavurvur is anything but extinct.

On September 19, 1994, it began an eruption that destroyed the most beautiful half of what was reputedly the most beautiful town in the South Pacific.

About three kilometres across the harbour, another volcano, Vulcan, erupted simultaneously but fell silent after two weeks.

Tavurvur belched ash, rock and fire for days, killing no one but dumping tens of thousands of tons of ash on the roofs of buildings until they collapsed.

Streets were buried, the golf course, and so was much of the history of a town founded by German settlers in the first decade of the 20th century on the Gazelle Peninsula of 39,807-square kilometre island of New Britain.

Today, Tavurvur still erupts, but with just a fraction of the violence it demonstrated in 1994.
Stay at the Hamamas Hotel, one of Rabaul's few surviving hotels, and proprietors Bruce and Susan Alexander may invite you to a barbeque at night at the ash-covered end of what was the former Rabaul airport runway.

You'll watch Tavurvur's fireworks over a stubby of beer and a frizzling sausage or two.

The fireworks show is almost guaranteed. Bruce knows how to read Tavurvur's mood. She'll grow calm for half-an-hour or so, with a diminution of the puff, puff, puff of clouds of black ash emitted steadily all day.

Then, there'll be a low rumble, a glow in ash cloud above the volcano, followed by a cascade of sparks or thin lines of glowing red that stream down Tavurvur's slopes, sometimes at a dozen at a time, and other times several dozens. The experience won't be ever forgotten.

The barbeque location is about 1.5 kilometres from the volcano. “We advise visitors to avoid the ash and not to venture near the volcanoes because of the trajectory of lava fragments that fall around Tavurvur,” says Patia.

“Some can fall more than two kilometres away during high activity. It would not be at all safe to climb the volcano. The only safe distance would be at the airport. I would not advise people to walk closer than 1.5 to two kilometres.”

Tavurvur makes its presence felt from the time a visitor lands at Tokua Airport, 40 kilometres from Rabaul and the replacement for the ruined Rabaul airfield.

The ash cloud above the volcano is strident on the horizon, looming more so during the drive through Kokopo.

Every so often Tavurvur emits a thick spout of smoke and ash that quickly becomes a mushroom. It's hard to keep newcomers' eyes from being trained on it.

At the observatory, Patia is a matter-of-fact about the perils the volcano presents to people living and doing business in the part of the town that wasn't destroyed.

His village, Gunanbo, lies 15 kilometres south of the crater and the fact of the volcano's presence on the horizon of his life is what drew him to become a geologist and then a volcanologist.

Of the more than 100 identified volcanoes in Papua New Guinea, about 14 are active, meaning they have erupted during the past one hundred years, he says.

“Of the 14, five are high risk in the sense that there are a lot of people living nearby, businesses, schools, and so on. They are Rabaul, Manam, Karkar Uluwan and Lamington, and the most active one currently is Pago in August 2002.

“Of the five, Rabaul is the hottest because of the population and businesses near it. It's up and down, sometimes going quiet for a while like Pago, which went completely quiet for a few months.

Manam occasionally puffs up and quietens down again, Rabaul is on-going.”

“Damage to Rabaul in 1994 was wind-determined like a 1937 eruption. Most of the damage was due to airborne materials and associated lightning.

“After 1994, it started up again in 1997. In 1994 the most damage was done in the first day or two by heavy ash fall.

“Activity at Vulcan subsided and ceased completely after two weeks. It is very quiet now. With Tavurvur, there've been eight episodes of increased activity between 1996 and 1998.

“There are other volcanoes that could go up one day, in particular through the Bismark Archipelago from the Sepik through to Madang and through to West New Britain and Bougainville. We don't monitor potential active ones.

“But if they are near one of the high risk ones, then we can have a rough idea of an impending eruption from the instrumentation that we have in the high-risk areas.

“Monitoring is done every day with seismic equipment to detect earthquakes and tilt meters to detect changes in the ground, which swells just like a balloon.

“There's a swelling in Rabaul harbour, which means there is pressure build up underneath.”
Patia says monitoring brings a warning of an eruption weeks ahead of it, or only hours.