WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Volcanologists were puzzled Monday about why a lake atop a rumbling volcano on the South Pacific island of Ambae has changed color from blue to bright red.
Mount Manaro, one of four volcanos currently active in the island nation of Vanuatu, has been showing signs of erupting for only the second time in 122 years.
``We are still ... trying to understand this change of color in the lake from blue to red,'' Geology and Mines Department director Esline Garae told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the Vanuatu capital, Port Vila.
She said two scientists on Ambae Island were monitoring Lake Vui as well as seismic activity on the 1,500-meter (5,000-foot) Mt. Manaro.
``If the change of color ... comes from new activity in the ground or just chemical change in the lake -- these are two things I want to know from those guys before I can say anything'' about the danger posed by the volcano, she said.
Mt. Manaro last erupted in November 2005, forcing half the island's 10,000 inhabitants to evacuate their villages but causing no injuries. The eruption before that, in 1884, killed scores of villagers.
Vanuatu, formerly called the New Hebrides Islands, is comprised of 13 main islands located 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) east of northeast Australia.
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