Sleeper volcano rips open in November 2025
Ethiopian Volcano Shows Global Vulnerability
Cassie B.
- A long-dormant Ethiopian volcano erupted for the first time in millennia.
- The ash cloud disrupted international air travel across multiple countries.
- Unmonitored volcanoes pose a greater global threat than famous, active ones.
- A similar hidden volcano caused a past disaster that killed thousands in Mexico.
- Such eruptions can alter the global climate and trigger humanitarian crises.
The natural world has just delivered a humbling reminder that its most dangerous threats are not always the ones we watch with bated breath.
In a remote corner of Ethiopia, the Hayli Gubbi volcano, a geological slumbering giant, roared back to life on Sunday for the first time in at least 12,000 years. This little-known mountain sent a towering plume of volcanic ash an astonishing 8.5 miles into the atmosphere, disrupting flights thousands of miles away and coating nearby villages in a layer of dust. The event is a powerful case study in global vulnerability, proving that our focus on famous volcanoes may be blinding us to the real dangers lurking in the shadows.
The science behind the silence
The eruption of Hayli Gubbi is the exact scenario experts have been warning about. According to Professor Mike Cassidy, a volcanologist at the University of Birmingham, these “hidden” volcanoes, which erupt without a recorded history, pose the single greatest threat to the world. “Often overlooked, these ‘hidden’ volcanoes erupt more often than most people realize,” Cassidy warns. He notes that in volatile regions like the Pacific, South America and Indonesia, an eruption from a volcano with no recorded history occurs every seven to ten years.
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The map shows the Hayli Gubbi’s toxic smoke spread
The immediate chaos caused by Hayli Gubbi was significant. The Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre tracked the ash cloud as it crossed the Red Sea, moving over Oman and Yemen before entering the airspace of Pakistan and northern India.
The disruption was swift and tangible. Air India was forced to cancel 11 flights, conducting precautionary checks on aircraft that had flown through the affected region. For local residents, the event was terrifying. “It felt like a sudden bomb had been thrown with smoke and ash,” one resident, Ahmed Abdela, told The Associated Press.
A deadly history
of being unprepared
This is not an isolated incident. History provides an unsettling precedent for the devastation a “hidden” volcano can unleash. Professor Cassidy points to the 1982 eruption of El Chichón in Mexico. This was a little-known and completely unmonitored volcano that had lain dormant for centuries. Its violent reawakening became Mexico’s worst volcanic disaster in modern times, killing more than 2,000 people and displacing 20,000 more. The tragedy underscores a critical failure in our approach to volcanic risk. It was only after the disaster that monitoring of El Chichón began, revealing a reactive rather than a proactive global strategy.
The true danger of these events extends far beyond the immediate blast zone. The eruption of El Chichón demonstrates how a single volcano can alter the global climate. The sulfur it released formed reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, which cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere. This climatic shift moved the African monsoon southwards, causing an extreme drought.
Scientists now understand that this volcanic activity contributed directly to the Ethiopian and East African famine of 1983–1985, a catastrophe that claimed the lives of an estimated 1 million people. A remote, unmonitored volcano played a silent, devastating role in one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 20th century.
The monumental gap in monitoring
Despite this clear and present danger, the global community remains dangerously underprepared. Professor Cassidy reveals a shocking statistic: “Three-quarters of large eruptions come from volcanoes that have been quiet for at least 100 years and, as a result, receive the least attention.”
The scientific effort is disproportionately focused on a handful of well-known volcanoes. “There are more published studies on one volcano (Mount Etna) than on all the 160 volcanoes of Indonesia, Philippines and Vanuatu combined,” Cassidy notes. Less than half of the world’s active volcanoes have any form of monitoring, leaving millions of people who live near them exposed to an unquantified risk.
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The forgotten Hayli Gubbi volcano before its eruption
This systemic neglect is a failure of investment and priority. “Global investment in volcanology has not kept pace with the risks,” Cassidy concludes. The result is a planet dotted with ticking time bombs, where millions in Latin America, south-east Asia, Africa and the Pacific live in the shadow of geological mysteries with little to no historical record of activity. The potential for another catastrophe on the scale of El Chichón, with its cascading global consequences, is not a matter of if, but when.
The solution, according to experts, is not to live in fear but to embrace preparedness. “When volcanoes are monitored, when communities know how to respond, and when communication and coordination between scientists and authorities is effective, thousands of lives can be saved,” Cassidy affirms.
There have not been reports of any casualties from the eruption of Hayli Gubbi, but the incident serves as a critical warning shot. It is a call to shift resources and attention to the world’s most overlooked and under-monitored volcanic zones, where modest investments could yield the greatest protection for human life.
As the ash from Ethiopia settles, the lesson it carries should echo around the world. Our fascination with the spectacular eruptions of famous volcanoes like Etna is a distraction from the quieter, more insidious threat. The true danger does not always roar; sometimes, it has been silent for 12,000 years. In an age of advanced technology and global connectivity, allowing millions to live in the shadow of unmonitored geological giants is not just an oversight. It is a profound failure to safeguard human life against the raw, unpredictable power of nature.
This article was first published in Chaos News under the title of “Hidden volcano erupts for first time in 12,000 years, exposing a global threat we are not prepared for” on November 27, 2025
Thanks for this, Incred!!
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