A volcano on a tiny uninhabited island in tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar archipelago has started spewing smoke, dust and lava more than a decade since its last eruption, officials said on Monday.
An Indian coast guard ship sighted a thick plume of smoke on Saturday as it came close to Barren Island and authorities said they were monitoring the situation and had informed the state-run Geological Survey of India.
"There is smoke intermittently coming out from its crater and flames or lava have also been also sighted," Coast Guard spokesman, Commander Subodh Kumar, told the agency on phone from Port Blair, the capital of the chain of more than 550 islands.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are situated on an undersea fault that continues to nearby Indonesia.
The island chain has experienced hundreds of aftershocks following the powerful undersea earthquake that caused the Asian tsunami.
More than 430 people were killed and at least 3,000 are still missing after the tsunami slammed into the Andamans on December 26 last year.
The first recorded eruption on Barren Island took place in 1787.
There have been many eruptions since then, the last being in December 1994.
The three-km wide island has sparse foliage that is eaten by goats that live there.
It is India's only active volcano, with a 1.6 km wide (one mile) crater and is situated 135 km (85 miles) northeast of Port Blair that is in the large and populated Andaman Island, 1,200 km (750 miles) south of the mainland.