News that Mt Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea has blown its top again should not come as a big surprise to anyone who has recently lived in or visited the town of Rabaul on the island of New Britain. It's a town that exists cheek by jowl with catastrophic, unpredictable elemental power. Rabaul residents are used to this. A favourite pastime has been driving out to the old airport's ash-buried runway for drinks at sundown while enjoying Tavurvur's spectacular fireworks, something I enjoyed on my last visit.

Since 2002 the volcano had been billowing thick smoke and occasionally spewing out red hot chunks of rock to tumble down its ash-cloaked slopes. On Saturday, however, it erupted in a massive blast that shattered windows over several kilometres and reportedly sent 90 percent of residents scurrying for safety.

Fortunately, lastest reports indicate things don't appear as ominous for Rabaul as they were on Monday, September 19, 1994, when life changed forever on the Gazelle Peninsula at the eastern end of New Britain. On that day both Tavurvur and Vulcan, another volcano situated diagonally across the glassy waters of Simpson Harbour, erupted with cataclysmic effect. Rabaul was buried and a new "capital", Kopoko, was built 20 kilometres to the south.

Tavurvur from across the harbour

Much of the eastern half of Rabaul town remains smothered under a layer of thick, brown volcanic silt from the 1994 eruption. Vulcan has been dormant since. Tavurvur lay quiet for a spell before recommencing activity four years ago.

On my last visit I ventured right up next to the volcano in an aluminium skiff, an act that seems foolhardy in hindsight. The skiff sailed deeper and deeper into hot water below the soot-blackened, smoking slopes.

Tavurvur reflected in the waters of Simpson Harbour

Tavurvur was regularly belching massive plumes of ash and dust and intermittently hurling chunks of superheated rock skyward. If one of these hot rocks had hurtled toward our tiny boat I would have faced a tough choice; to stay put or leap for safety into a super-heated sea!

About as close as you dare get to an active volcano!

Rabaul now waits anxiously to see what happens next with Tavurvur. Vulcanologist Steve Saunders, at the Rabaul Volcano Observatory on the slopes of Tovanumbatir, an extinct volcanic peak, will be the first to know about new developments while down in the town at the Hamamas Hotel owner Bill Alexander is no doubt pondering the immediate future. More than once in the past decade the Alexanders have dug the the hotel out from beneath layers of volcanic ash. They'll be wondering if they could face doing that again.