Mount Merapi near Yogyakarta erupted on Nov. 18 at sunrise, forcing villagers to temporarily leave their homes. (JG Photo/Boy T Harjanto) |
The Central
Java volcano Mount Merapi erupted early Monday morning, forcing villagers to
evacuate their homes as wind carried a cloud of ash down the eastern and
southeastern slopes of the volcano.
Sutopo
Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman of the Solo office of the National Disaster
Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said the eruption took place between 4:50 a.m. and
6:00 a.m., and that the agency had detected a series of small seismic quakes in
the minutes before the volcano erupted.
Sutopo said
in a written statement that this morning’s event shared similar characteristics
with the 2,914-meter-high volcano’s July 22 eruption, but that the latest was
marginally stronger. The eruption had softened by mid morning and the agency
was evaluating whether Merapi would continue to pose a risk.
The ash
cloud blew as far as Solo and blanketed Boyolali in ash. Villagers in
Glagahharjo, Sleman, and several small communities around Boyolali’s Selo
subdistrict left their homes to fixed evacuation points. The affected
residents, were, however, able to return to their homes by mid morning.
The
Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Agency (BPPTKG) in
Yogyakarta said that the ash traveled as far as 61.9 kilometers from the peak.
“Multi-phased
quakes occurred 10 times before 04.58 but at on insignificant scales. No
volcanic quake was recorded before the ash eruption,” said Lasiman, an officer
at the Merapi Monitoring Post in Kaliurang.
Mount
Merapi’s last major eruption was in October, 2010 when an ash cloud killed 32
people on its slope and forced more than 50,000 people to flee their homes.
—With
additional reporting by Ari Susanto
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