In the village of Klyuchi, residents reported after the night eruption of Shiveluch in Kamchatka, tap water turned dirty. People gathered at the central square to receive clean water, which the army distributed to everyone present. A local resident described the water as cloudy and noted that filters were unable to cope with the contamination. A soldier stood at the village square to oversee the water distribution, while the district head ordered a delivery of five tons of water to be distributed to residents. Many were advised to stay indoors as a sulfur smell lingered in the air, and approximately 12 centimeters of ash had fallen when the ash cloud began to dissipate.
A second resident, Victoria Shatskikh, observed that ash continued to fall on the village and nearby areas. She lives in a military town close to Klyuchi, about 37 kilometers from the volcano. Speaking about the night of the eruption, she said it was the most powerful explosion she had witnessed in her 22 years there, with ash covering everything and the roar being unusually intense. The area became quiet afterward, but the ash kept coming down. She noted disruptions to services for children, with the local children’s clinic and a social services center closed or operating at reduced capacity. Schoolchildren were moved to distance learning for ten days, while the kindergarten would operate in duty groups until April 20. She has a young child and expressed concern about managing care and routines during the disruption.
Shiveluch volcano entered an active phase on the night of April 11, triggering ashfall in nearby settlements. The eruption brought ash to the Kamchatka village of Klyuchi at a scale considered the strongest in six decades, according to the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The last comparable ashfall in Klyuchi was recorded in 1964, and the eruption was marked with a red aviation hazard code, signaling significant risk to air operations in the region.