Indonesia’s Mount Merapi erupted on Saturday with avalanches of searing gas clouds and lava, forcing authorities to halt tourism and mining activities.
Key points:
- A mixture of hot rock, lava and gas travelled up to seven kilometres down the volcano’s slopes during the eruption
- No casualties have been reported
- Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia
Merapi, on the densely populated island of Java, unleashed clouds of hot ash and a mixture of rock, lava and gas that travelled up to seven kilometres down its slopes.
A column of hot clouds rose 100 metres into the air, according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari.
The eruption throughout the day blocked out the sun and blanketed several villages with falling ash.
No casualties have been reported.
It was Merapi’s biggest lava flow since authorities raised the alert level to the second-highest possible level in November 2020, said Hanik Humaida, head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.
She said residents living on Merapi’s slopes were advised to stay seven kilometres away from the crater’s mouth and be aware of the danger posed by lava.
The 2,968-metre mountain is about 30 kilometres from Yogyakarta, an ancient centre of Javanese culture and the seat of royal dynasties going back centuries.
About 250,000 people live within 10 kilometres of the volcano.
Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds in recent years. Its last major eruption, in 2010, killed 347 people and displaced 20,000 villagers.
Indonesia, with a population of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.
An eruption in December 2021 of Mount Semeru, the highest volcano on Java island, left 48 people dead and 36 missing.
AP