For the second day in a row, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, erupted.
The explosion launched a column of smoke and volcanic material shot up to 11 miles in the sky early Saturday morning. Debris from the volcano blanketed villages, but no casualties have been reported. The explosion was one of the country’s largest since the 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi, the country’s most volatile volcano.
On Friday, in an eruption that occurred just hours before the one Saturday morning, smoke and ash went as high as 6.2 miles, as the volcano lit up the sky with glowing lava and bolts of lightning.
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Indonesia’s Geology Agency recorded an avalanche of searing gas clouds mixed with rocks and lava traveling up to 3 miles down the slopes of the mountain. Drone observations showed deep magma movement, triggering tremors that registered on seismic monitors.
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Volcanic material, including hot, thumb-sized gravel, was thrown up to 5 miles from the crater, covering nearby villages and towns with thick volcanic residue, the agency said. It asked residents to be vigilant about heavy rainfall that could trigger lava flows in rivers originating from the volcano.
Lewotobi Laki Laki has been on the highest alert level since the 5,197-foot volcano erupted in June, and the exclusion zone has been doubled to a 4.3-mile radius due to more frequent eruptions.
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The explosion comes less than a month after Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport was forced to delay and cancel flights when a major eruption on July 7 covered the roads and fields with debris.
Indonesia is home to 280 million people and has 120 active volcanoes. It sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
