A volcano on Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali sent a brand new wave of hot ash into the air on Sunday in the most recent of several eruptions within the country throughout the week.
Mount Agung erupted for about three minutes, sending white clouds of smoke and ash greater than 700 meters into the air, the Volcanology and Geology Mitigation Agency said in a press release.
The 3,031-meter-high volcano’s eruption has not resulted in evacuations and its alert status stays on the second-highest level.
The agency warned tourists to keep away from the danger zone inside a 4 km radius across the crater.
Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said white ash from the eruption covered several villages near mountain slopes in Karangasem district.
Ngurah Rai International Airport spokesman Arie Ahsanurrohim said flights were operating as normal.
Authorities said the air around Denpasar, the provincial capital of Bali, was clear of ash.
In late September, after the alert was raised to its highest level, greater than 140,000 people fled the world across the mountain, indicating that an eruption could also be imminent.
The alert level was lowered two weeks later, allowing those displaced from government shelters to return.
The volcanic eruption in 1963 killed roughly 1,100 people. Agung is situated roughly 70 km northeast of Bali’s tourist attraction – Kuta.
It is certainly one of over 120 energetic volcanoes in Indonesia, which is susceptible to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes as a consequence of its location on the so-called The “Ring of Fire” – a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.
Last week, Anak Krakatoa in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait erupted and fell into the ocean, causing a tsunami that killed 431 people in Java and Sumatra. More than 46,600 people were displaced.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: A volcano in Bali erupts, spewing ash
