Scientists with the US Geological Survey warned Saturday that Mount St. Helens could erupt at any moment, placing the Washington state volcano at its highest alert level. Geologists said odds exceeded 50 percent that fresh magma was moving toward the surface, and authorities cleared a five-mile (8 km) zone around the mountain, including a nearby federal observatory.
A large ash and steam column had burst from the volcano the previous day before dying down Saturday, though low seismic tremors persisted beneath the peak. Experts cautioned that any new eruption would likely be far less severe than the catastrophic 1980 blast, which killed 57 people, buried surrounding communities in ash, and triggered devastating floods and mudslides across the Pacific Northwest.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.