JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia ordered thousands of people to evacuate from around Mount Merapi on Monday as it raised the alert for its most active volcano to red, warning of a possible imminent eruption.
Seismic activity has escalated dramatically at the volcano on the densely populated island of Java, with increasing lava spurts and about 500 multi-phased volcanic earthquakes recorded over the weekend, said officials.
Source: Flash News
Seismic activity has escalated dramatically at the volcano on the densely populated island of Java, with increasing lava spurts and about 500 multi-phased volcanic earthquakes recorded over the weekend, said officials.
- The state office of volcanology had upgraded its alert level to red at 6.00 a.m. (2300 GMT), signalling an eruption could be imminent.
- “The magma has been pushed upwards due to the escalating seismic energy and it’s about a kilometre below the crater,” said government volcanologist Surono.
- About 19,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate a danger zone of 10 km from the crater of the 2,914-metre mountain. About 3,000 have already moved to makeshift camps, said officials.
Merapi — whose name means “Mountain of Fire” — has been blanketed with clouds since the morning.- The volcano is the most active of 69 volcanoes with histories of eruptions in Indonesia, which straddles major seismic fault lines in a region known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire”. Mount Merapi last erupted in June 2006 killing two people.
- Its deadliest eruption occurred in 1930 when more than 1,300 people were killed. Heat clouds from another eruption in 1994 killed more than 60 people. In August, the 2,460-metre Mount Sinabung on the island of Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years, sending thousands of people into temporary shelters.
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