Yomba

Oral tradition suggests the possible existence of a now-submerged volcano off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Accounts from many villages along the Madang coast report that residents fled from Yomba Island 8-10 generations ago, when the island was destroyed by an eruption accompanied by a tsunami. The location of the former island is uncertain, but most informants placed it in the vicinity of the present-day Hankow Reef (Mennis, 1981), between Bagabag and Crown Islands, NW of Long Island. Binns et al. (2002) surveyed the area, locating two distinct seamounts as well as a caldera SW of the reef; they found no evidence for the existence of the legendary Yomba volcano.