THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 7, 2021 at 16:10 JST
Mount Merapi spews volcanic materials from its crater as seen from Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 7. (AP Photo)
JAKARTA--Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano spewed avalanches of hot clouds Thursday morning as more than 500 residents were evacuated from its fertile slopes.
Fog was covering the volcano at the time, so the distance the pyroclastic clouds spread was not visually observed. The amplitude record and seismic recording data from Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center estimated the hot clouds spread less than 1 kilometer from the crater.
Local authorities on Thursday evacuated more than 500 people living on the mountain in Magelang district on Java Island.
“Until now, the potential danger is not more than 5 kilometers (3 miles),” chief of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center, Hanik Humaida, said in a statement.
The geological authority had raised the alert level of Mount Merapi to the second-highest level in November after sensors picked up increasing activity. Tourism and mining activities were halted.
The 2,968-meter mountain is about 30 kilometers from the Yogyakarta city center. About a quarter million people live within 10 kilometers of the volcano, according to authorities in surrounding districts.
It spewed ash and hot gas in a column as high as 6 kilometers into the sky in June, but no casualties were reported.
Its last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people and caused the evacuation of 20,000 villagers.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 250 million people, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Government seismologists monitor more than 120 active volcanoes.
Thousands flee as activity in Indonesian volcanoes increases
December 1, 2020
Indonesia’s most active volcano erupts, spews ash into sky
March 3, 2020
Philippine volcano spews lava, ash for 3rd day, 30,000 flee
January 14, 2020
Lava gushes from Philippine volcano, ash spreads to Manila
January 13, 2020
Expert: Volcano ‘recharging,’ shops, hotels told to keep shut
January 20, 2020
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
