Miyake Island's Mount Oyama erupted again early Tuesday morning -- its second major blast this summer -- hastening the evacuation of 136 children later in the day.

More evacuations are expected to follow. Miyake village officials have requested that the metropolitan government shelter the roughly 1,200 children, elderly, and women who remained on the island as of Tuesday morning.

In all, 2,000 residents were on the island when the latest eruption sent a plume of smoke some 8,000 meters into the air.

A local meteorological observatory issued a warning to residents after the 813-meter volcano started belching at around 4:35 a.m. No casualties have been reported.

A plume of black smoke reached 5,000 meters and was topped by a plume of white smoke reaching another 3,000 meters into the sky. In the first major blast, on Aug. 18, smoke spewed 15,000 meters above the crater, with the pall of black smoke climbing more than 8,000 meters.

In the most recent eruption, ash fell in the district of Tsubota, in the southeast of the island, and in Kamitsuki, to the north, but no volcanic cinders have been detected, village officials said.

In some areas, 15 cm of volcanic ash has fallen.

The children who were evacuated -- grade school through senior high school students -- spent the night aboard an ocean liner on its way to Tokyo. They were accompanied by 94 teachers.

All but five of the students are scheduled to arrive at Tokyo's Akigawa Municipal High School in Akiruno, western Tokyo, around noon today, where they will be given dormitory rooms.

The evacuation, originally planned for Thursday, was moved forward two days following the eruption.

Some 204 other schoolchildren who had previously left the island will join today's arrivals in the dorms.

Akigawa Municipal High School, which will close at the end of March, has 480 beds for students and additional rooms for teachers. It also has empty classrooms where officials plan to hold classes "as soon as school supplies are secured."

Meanwhile, the central government set up a task force Tuesday to monitor volcanic and seismic activities on Miyake and other nearby islands.

The task force, headed by National Land Agency chief Chikage Ogi, will draft comprehensive measures to improve steps to observe the volcano and to ensure the safety of local residents, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa told a press conference.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government further said it would accommodate all evacuees from the island and has chartered a vessel that can carry up to 1,800 people.

Roughly half of the approximately 3,850 residents of Miyake Island have left the island due to a recent series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

So far, all evacuations have been voluntary.

An approximately 7-km stretch of prefectural road on the island was closed by mud that was washed off surrounding hills by rain that accompanied the eruption, though 4 km reopened later in the day, the officials said.

In addition, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 5 jolted the Izu islands Tuesday morning, the Meteorological Agency said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the 11 a.m. quake and no tsunami warning was issued.

The temblor registered a lower 5 on the Japanese intensity scale of 7 on Shikine and Niijima islands, and 4 on Toshima Island. Its focus was about 10 km below sea level just off nearby Niijima and Kozu islands, the agency said.

Also on Tuesday, power outages affected one-quarter of the 55-sq.-km island beginning at around 6:10 a.m., Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. It was not immediately clear what caused the outages.

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, currently in Malaysia meeting the mayors of three other major Asian cities, ordered the Disaster Prevention Headquarters be set up at Tokyo Metropolitan Government offices Tuesday morning -- the third time such an office has been established this year.

The headquarters was last set up June 26, following reports of an imminent volcanic eruption on Mount Oyama, which has erupted several times this summer, including a relatively small blast on Monday.