A long-dormant volcano in northern Ethiopia has erupted, sending plumes of ash across the Red Sea towards Yemen and Oman.

The Hayli Gubbi volcano in the Afar region of Ethiopia, located about 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa, erupted for several hours on Sunday morning, leaving the nearby village of Afdera covered in ash.

There were no casualties from the eruption, which sent thick plumes of smoke up to 14km (nine miles) into the sky, sending ash clouds to Yemen, Oman, India, and northern Pakistan, according to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in France.

Ahmed Abdela, a resident of the Afar region, said it “felt like a sudden bomb had been thrown”. Many people who had been heading to the Danakil desert, a local tourist attraction, were left stranded in ash-covered Afdera on Monday, he said.

Mohammed Seid, a local administrator, said there were no casualties, but the eruption could have economic implications for the local community of livestock herders.

“While no human lives and livestock have been lost so far, many villages have been covered in ash, and as a result, their animals have little to eat,” he said.

The volcano, which rises about 500 metres in altitude, sits within the Rift Valley, a zone of intense geological activity where two tectonic plates meet.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program said Hayli Gubbi has had no known eruptions during the current geological epoch, which experts know as the Holocene.

Although no casualties have been reported, there are fears that livelihoods have been devastated with grazing and farming land blanketed in ash.

The effects are not just local but international.

According to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC), the eruption has stopped, but the ash cloud previously detected over northern India is drifting toward China and later Japan.

Earlier, thick plumes had sent ash to Yemen, Oman, India and northern Pakistan, raising widespread pollution concerns.

On X, Air India announced the cancellation of several domestic and international flights to conduct “precautionary checks on aircraft that had flown over certain geographical locations after the Hayli Gubbi volcanic eruption.”

Hayli Gubbi is part of the Erta Ale volcanic range in the Rift Valley — a zone of intense geological activity where two tectonic plates are pulling apart.

Scientists say much remains unknown about the Erta Ale range due to the harsh, inaccessible terrain.