Bliotar, Indonesia (ANTARA News) - A day after a false alarm on Indonesia's Mount Kelut led to panic among residents on its slopes, the volcano is showing signs of an imminent eruption, a scientist said Sunday.
"An eruption is now very, very much possible, although so far it has not yet happened," said Agus Budianto, a geologist monitoring the activities of the volcano in the densely populated East Java province.
On Saturday, continuous tremors beneath the volcano became so strong that they could no longer be read on seismological instruments, leading scientists to evacuate their posts and warn an eruption appeared to have occurred.
They could not confirm it visually as the top of the historically deadly mountain was shrouded by clouds but their warning led residents still in the danger zone to flee in fear for their lives.
Budianto said: "There was no lava or ash emitted by the volcano." But the volcano's behaviour on Sunday indicated an eruption was still imminent, he added.
"Besides the rising earthquakes and tremors, we are also witnessing a new phenomenon -- smoke rising from the crater lake and the temperature of the water continuously rising," he told AFP.
A 15-metre (yard) deep lake fills the volcano's crater.
"All these developments show that the volcano has reached some sort of point of no return," he added.
Tens of thousands of people have already been evacuated from the fertile slopes of Mount Kelut, just 90 kilometres (56 miles) from Indonesia's second city of Surabaya, but some residents have refused to leave their homes.
The peak was put on red alert on October 16 but activity then dropped off until Friday when the tremors dramatically escalated.
About 130,000 people live within a 10-kilometre (six-mile) danger zone around the volcano, according to the health ministry, but local officials have said they were focusing on evacuating about 60,000.
Experts expect an eruption of Kelut to consist of "heat clouds" or pyroclastic flows of searing gas and volcanic debris rushing down the slopes, similar to the last eruption in 1990 that left 34 people dead.
Since record-keeping began, Mount Kelut's eruptions have claimed more than 15,000 lives, including an estimated 10,000 in a catastrophic 1586 eruption. A 1919 eruption spewed heat clouds that killed 5,160 people.
Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," where several continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
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