One of Russia's most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday, spewing a huge cloud of ash far into the sky and smothering villages in gray volcanic dust, prompting an aviation alert around Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka peninsula, Reuters reported.

The Shiveluch volcano erupted shortly after midnight, reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing an ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square km, according to the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The strongest ashfall in 60 years occurred in #Kamchatka due to the eruption of the Shiveluch volcano.

The thickness of the layer of volcanic ash in four hours reached 8.5 cm. pic.twitter.com/n4FgDS7V4B

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 11, 2023

Flows of lava poured from the volcano, melting snow and prompting a mudslide warning on a nearby highway, while villages were covered in gray ash beds up to 8.5cm deep - the deepest in 60 years.

"The ash reached a height of 20 km, the ash cloud was moving westward and there was a very heavy fall of ash on nearby villages," said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service.

"The volcano has been preparing for this for at least a year ... and the process continues, although now it has calmed down a bit," Chebrov said.

He said the volcano was now likely to calm down, but further large ash clouds could not be ruled out. According to him, the lava flows should not reach the local villages.

The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) issued a red warning for aviation, saying "continued activity may affect international and low-flying aircraft".

Some schools on the Kamchatka Peninsula, about 6,800 km east of Moscow, have been closed and residents have been ordered to stay indoors, the head of Ust-Kamchatka Municipal District, Oleg Bondarenko, said in a Telegram post.

"Because of what I just saw here with my own eyes, it will be impossible for children to go to school, and the presence of children here in general is questionable," said Bondarenko.

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