A Japanese volcano made famous by a James Bond film could keep spewing ash and lava two miles into the air for months to come.
Shinmoedake, on the southernmost island of Kyushu, started erupting last Thursday but authorities said Saturday was the most violent day yet.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency said big explosions occurred at 1.52am and 4.27am local time, the strongest in seven years.
A Japanese volcano made famous by a James Bond film could keep spewing ash and lava two miles into the air for months to come
Shinmoedake, on the southernmost island of Kyushu, started erupting last Thursday but authorities said Saturday was the most violent day yet
‘This is the strongest day yet. This will go on for a while,’ an official said, predicting the eruption wouldn’t send for months.
Japanese TV said ash was blown 3,650 metres into the air, cancelling 65 flights from a nearby airport and prompting the whole 1,421m-high peak to be sealed off.
Shinmoedake was featured as villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s secret lair in the 1967 film You Only Live Twice starring Sean Connery as agent 007.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency said big explosions occurred at 1.52am and 4.27am local time, the strongest in seven years
On Tuesday, it eventually erupted and threw ash thousands of metres into the sky, prompting the cancellation of flights to and from a nearby airport
Television footage showed smoke and ash billowing high into the sky, with lava visible deep inside a crater at the mountain, which featured in the movie.
Shinmoedake’s crater acts as an entrance to a mysterious, hidden base with aircraft coming and going.
Having establishing the mouth of the volcano is a disguised hatch to a secret rocket base, Bond slips in to save the day.
On the set of the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, at Pinewood Studios. Pictured is the villain’s secret headquarters located inside a volcano
Sean Connery (left) played James Bond in 1967 movie You Only Live Twice which featured the volcano (right)
In September 2014, 63 people were killed on Mount Ontake, the worst volcanic toll in Japan for nearly 90 years.
Back in January, a member of Japan’s military was struck and killed when rocks from a volcanic eruption rained down on skiers at a mountain resort in central Japan.
The volcano erupted in December, and drone footage showed smoke billowing from its crater.
A screenshot of the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice shows an aircraft above the volcano
A villain in the James Bond series works inside the volcano – a lair of villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.