THE ERUPTION WAS PRECEDED BY A NUMBER OF EARTHQUAKES AND THE LAVA FLEW HUNDREDS OF METERS FROM THE SURFACE . THE VOLCANIC ASH ROSE FOR MORE THAN 300 METERS .THE WESTERN PORTION OF THE ISLAND COLLAPSED TO THE RED SEA.THE ISLAND MOUNTAIN EXTENDS TO A DEPTH OF 1200 METERS.

THE YEMEN SEISMIC OBSERVATORY REPORTED THAT SINCE SEPTEMBER THE 7TH THE SEISMIC ACTIVITY IN THE REGION WAS INCREASED AND REACHED HIGH MAGNITUDES IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS.

tHREE BODIES WERE RECOVERED FROM THE SEA, ONE SURVIVOR WAS RESCUED AFTER SWIMING FOR 24 HOURS. 48 OTHER MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY POST AT THE ISLAND ARE IN THE HUDAYDA HOSPITAL.

A search for survivors is under way after a volcano erupted on a Yemeni island in the Red Sea, killing at least two people.

The western part of the tiny al-Tair island, used as a military base, collapsed following the eruption, the defence ministry said.
Two bodies were recovered from the sea and other soldiers are missing.
Yemeni coastguards requested the help of nearby Nato ships in the search and rescue operation.

The Canadian navy frigate HMCS Toronto was sailing towards the Suez Canal when it received the request.

The Toronto's crew told the Canadian Press news agency two bodies had been pulled out of the sea, while one soldier had been rescued.
Other reports, quoting soldiers and government officials, suggested the death toll could be higher.

About 50 Yemeni soldiers were evacuated from the island before the eruption, witnesses and officials said.
Rescuers were scouring the sea for about eight other soldiers who were feared to be missing.

'Aglow with lava'

On Sunday evening, Canadian navy spokesman Ken Allen told reporters in an e-mail that the entire island was "aglow with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea".

"The lava is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also 1,000 feet in the air."
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to nearby al-Hudayda port on Sunday to observe the situation.

He ordered Yemen's navy to send rescue teams to the area.
The island, some 140km (80 miles) off the Yemen coast, is about 3km long and has been used as a military base since 1996.

Geologists say al-Tair, which lies on a major fault line, last saw a volcanic eruption in the late 19th Century.

Yemeni officials are linking the eruption to several small earthquakes which they say hit the island on Sunday morning.

SANAA, Oct 1 (Reuters) - A volcano erupted on an island off Yemen's Red Sea coast late on Sunday, killing at least three Yemeni soldiers and spewing lava hundreds of metres into the air.

A government official said three bodies had been recovered, along with one survivor. Another four soldiers stationed on Jabal al-Tair island, some 80 miles (130 km) off Yemen's mainland, were still missing and believed to be dead.

The government previously said at least eight soldiers had been killed.
A Defence Ministry official on the island, which has been home to a military base since Yemen's 1996 conflict with Eritrea, said its western part had "collapsed" into the sea.

Naval ships were searching the surrounding waters for missing soldiers. The island has no civilian inhabitants.

Canadian navy vessel Toronto, part of a NATO fleet sailing north towards the Suez Canal at the time of the eruption, was also conducting search and rescue operations at the request of the Yemeni coast guard.
"Toronto recovered one live survivor who was transferred to a Yemeni coastguard vessel, as well as two dead soldiers who were transferred to a Yemeni patrol boat," said Lieutenant Commander Angus Topshee, second-in-command on the HMCS Toronto.

Yemen's Oil Minister Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah said several earthquakes on Sunday had triggered the eruption.

Jamal al-Shalaan, head of the Yemeni Earthquake Centre, told state news agency Saba that three quakes ranging between 4.3 and 4 on the Richter scale had struck the island at around 1127 GMT.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh had flown to nearby Hudaidah port late on Sunday and told the Yemeni navy to send rescue teams, Saba reported.

"A GIANT LIGHT SHOW"

Canadian Navy spokesman Ken Allan told Reuters from on board the HMCS Toronto the volcano on the two-mile-long (3 km) island had spewed ash thousands of feet into the sky, but that activity had now died down.
"It was incredible. It was like a giant light show. As you got really close to it you could see the lava spewing down the east and west side ... right into the ocean," he said.

"It really lit up the sky. The smoke and the ash were rising thousands of feet up into the air. It was a three-quarter moon and it got blocked out many times."

Shipments of around 3 million barrels of oil per day through the southern entrance to the Red Sea were unaffected by the eruption, Yemen coastguard and shipping sources said.

Yemen's Maritime Affairs Authority issued
an advisory for vessels to keep well clear of the island on the Bab al-Mandab passage at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, one of the world's shipping chokepoints.

Oil tankers move through the passage en route to the Suez Canal or to the southern terminal of the Sumed pipeline in Egypt to supply crude to Mediterranean countries and beyond.

A Yemeni geologist said the volcano had previously erupted in the 19th and 18th centuries, Saba said. (Additional reporting by Diala Saadeh in Dubai, Mohammed Sudam in Sanaa, Andrew Hammond in Riyadh and David Ljunngren in Ottawa)

A Canadian navy ship has rescued a Yemeni soldier and recovered the bodies of two others following a volcanic eruption on a small island in the Red Sea. A total of four survivors were pulled from the water.
HMCS Toronto was part of a NATO fleet sailing toward the Suez Canal when the Yemeni government asked them to assist in the search for eight soldiers believed at sea after the volcano.

Navy spokesman Ken Allen, aboard HMCS Toronto, told The Canadian Press the survivors were found this morning as the ships were leaving the area after the Yemeni coast guard no longer required their services.
Allen said that HMCS Toronto rescued one of the eight missing Yemeni soldiers and recovered the bodies of two others.

Three more survivors were pulled from the water by Dutch and American ships.
Twenty nine soldiers were based at the island, located about 140 kilometres off the Yemeni coast, that is used for naval control and observation because large cargo ships pass nearby.

The eruption collapsed part of the island and covered the rest with lava, forcing authorities to evacuate the base, the Yemeni news agency SABA reported.

Lava and ash, which shot hundreds of feet into the air in the initial eruption, continued to spew from the volcano Monday, the Yemeni Defense Ministry said.

The six-ship NATO fleet was asked by Yemen to assist in the search and found two survivors, as well as the four bodies, said Cmdr. Stuart Moors of the Canadian navy who was aboard the USS Bainbridge, in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Yemeni coast guard and navy had earlier evacuated 21 personnel from island base, leaving the eight missing, Moors said. Yemeni officials would not confirm how many of its personnel were originally on the island.
It was not clear whether the victims were killed by the eruption or by drowning.

“We’re still searching” for the other two missing Yemenis, Moors said from the Bainbridge, which is based in Norfolk, Va., and is the flagship of the NATO fleet.

“As soon as we found these people, we offered to remain and assist. We have continued our search through the day and we’re remaining in touch with Yemen authorities,” he said.
The two rescued men were turned over to the Yemeni coast guard, Moors said.

One of the survivors who was found by the Bainbridge reported being in the water for more than 12 hours, and “he was in quite good shape, considering the hardship.’’
He had no information on the other survivor, who was picked up by the HMCS Toronto.

Canadian navy spokesman Ken Allen, who was aboard the Toronto, said the eruption was “catastrophic.’’

On Sunday evening, he reported that the entire island “is aglow with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea.’’
“The lava is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also (rising) a thousand feet in the air,” he said in an e-mail from the ship.
Sailors on Monday could hear “what sounded like popping noise from the lava going up in the air, and you could see big steam plumes and smoke,” Moors said.

Jabal al-Tair — meaning “Bird Mountain” — is one of a number of volcanos at the southern end of the Red Sea in the narrows between Yemen and Sudan. The island last saw an explosive eruption in 1883, according to the Washington-based Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program.
In the past two weeks, the area around the island had seen light earthquakes between magnitude 2 to 3.6, with three larger ones Sunday reaching magnitude 4.3, the Yemeni Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources said, according to SABA. Fishermen and other boats had been warned from approaching the area, it said.

At least 9 Yemen soldiers are missing after a volcano erupted on Jabal al-Tair, an island 130 km from Yemen. The country had a military base located on the island since 1996 after a dispute with nearby country Eritrea over the islands of Hanish and Jabal Zuqar.
According to reports at least 49 soldiers were evacuated and nine were missing; eight of them are regarded as dead.

The eruption happened late Sunday and witnesses say the island was engulfed in flames and then ‘disappeared.’ Lava and volcanic ash spewed hundreds of meters in the air. An official of the Defense Ministry said a part of the island had “collapsed” and Naval ships were searching the coast for the missing soldiers.