West of Java.

Roto-Reuters: Red Sea volcano erupts

A volcano erupted on a Yemeni Red Sea island late on Sunday, killing at least seven soldiers and spewing lava and ash hundreds of meters into the air.

A government official said seven bodies had been recovered, along with one survivor, all soldiers stationed on Jabal al-Tair island, some 80 miles off Yemen's mainland.

A Defence Ministry official on the island, which has been home to a military base since Yemen's 1996 conflict with Eritrea, said its western part had "collapsed" into the sea.

Naval ships had been searching the surrounding waters for the soldiers. The island has no civilian inhabitants.

Canadian navy vessel Toronto, part of a NATO fleet sailing north towards the Suez Canal at the time of the eruption, was also conducting search and rescue operations at the request of the Yemeni coast guard.

"Toronto recovered one live survivor who was transferred to a Yemeni coastguard vessel, as well as two dead soldiers who were transferred to a Yemeni patrol boat," said Lieutenant Commander Angus Topshee, second-in-command on the HMCS Toronto.

Yemen's Oil Minister Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah said several earthquakes on Sunday had triggered the eruption.

Jamal al-Shalaan, head of the Yemeni Earthquake Centre, told state news agency Saba that three quakes with a magnitude of between 4 and 4.3 had struck the island at around 7:27 a.m. EDT.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh had flown to nearby Hudaidah port late on Sunday and told the Yemeni navy to send rescue teams, Saba reported.

Watch raw footage of a volcano spewing lava off the coast of Yemen. » Watch video