More smoke, ash as Indonesia’s Ruang volcano erupts again
The threat from an Indonesian volcano that has erupted more than half a dozen times is not over, as it belched more smoke and ash and an international airport remains closed. See the photos.
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The threat from an Indonesian volcano that has erupted more than half a dozen times this week is not over, as the crater belched another ash tower on Saturday.
Mount Ruang, located in Indonesia’s outermost region of North Sulawesi province, started erupting late Tuesday, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands on islands near the stratovolcano and closure of the nearest international airport.
The volcano erupted again before midnight Friday and again on Saturday afternoon, spewing an ash column 250 metres above its peak, the latest of a wave of volcanic activity, the archipelago’s top volcanology official told AFP.
That forced the country’s volcanology agency to warn that major eruptions could still take place, despite the crater calming since it stirred a spectacular mix of lava, ash and lightning earlier in the week, raining down molten rocks on nearby villages.
“With volcanic earthquakes recorded, this crisis is not over yet,” agency head Hendra Gunawan told AFP.
“It indicates magmatic fluid supply is still moving from the depth to the surface. So it’s not surprising if eruptions still occur.” The volcano, with a peak 725 metres above sea level, is currently the only one of Indonesia’s more than 100 volcanos at the highest alert level of a four-tiered system.
The volcano is also 1640km away from Indonesia’s popular tourist hotspot of Bali.
Authorities have kept a six-kilometre exclusion zone around the volcano.
More than 6,000 residents of neighbouring Tagulandang island, home to around 20,000 people, were evacuated outside the exclusion zone, a local official said Friday.
Residents were advised to wear masks to avoid respiratory problems, the agency said in a statement.
The stratovolcano’s latest activity also prompted authorities to extend the closure of Sam Ratulangi international airport in the provincial capital of Manado, more than 100 kilometres away.
The airport, initially set to reopen Saturday, will remain closed until Sunday as volcanic ash from Mount Ruang was detected around it, Ambar Suryoko, head of the Manado region airport authority, said in a statement.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.
A tsunami alert was issued after it erupted several times in Indonesia’s outermost region.
It first erupted at 9:45pm local time on Tuesday and four times throughout Wednesday.
Ruang’s initial eruption late on Tuesday pushed an ash column two kilometres into the sky, with the second eruption pushing it to 2.5 kilometres, Muhammad Wafid, head of the geological agency said in a statement earlier Wednesday.
The volcanology agency said Tuesday that volcanic activity had increased at Ruang after two earthquakes in recent weeks.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
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