Gunung Merapi on Java has the distinction of being one of the more dangerous volcanoes in the world. And it's located at a convenient distance of only 30km away for any Yogyakartans who fancy a bit of sight seeing.
The alert status for Indonesia's most active volcano is now at its highest.
Vulcanology experts say 30 blazing lava flows have been streaming towards rivers 1.5 kilometres from the volcano's peak along the south-western slopes of the mountain.
Thousands of villagers have fled as officials raise Merapi's alert warning to the highest - red - as the "mountain of fire" shoots thick white smoke 400 metres into the air.
A lava dome atop Mount Merapi has grown 75 metres in the past two weeks.
Scientists say its collapse will release lava as well as deadly nuees ardentes, a geological term for clouds of volcanic gases, ash, and dust reaching temperatures up to 500 degrees Celsius.
-from ABC News Online
Merapi is one of sixteen Decade volcanoes, mountains with a history of particularly violent eruptions and close proximity to populated areas. Merapi is placed at number 6, which is―for the benefit of the Victoria BC readers―just two ahead of Mt Rainer in Washington (probably one of the peaks I liked to look at when I was in BC).
ABC News report.
Wiki on Merapi.
Wiki on Decade volcanoes.
2 comments:
apparently she blew today !! are you wearing any ash?
When Mt. St. Helen's erupted in 1980, our car was covered in ash the next morning.
Found a great series of pictures of the volcano while I was browsing for the latest news this morning. This one in particular kind of sums up Indonesia, for me.
No ash included in the ensemble this morning, but then we're much further from Merapi than you are from St Helen's. I'm impressed: volcanic ash on your car seems very glamorous!
The eruption on Java wasn't the big one they were anticipating, from what I can glean. News is a lot thinner on the ground than it was a few days ago when it was "IMMINENT CATACLYSM!!" "A bit of lava runs slowly down hill" isn't nearly so worthy of column inches.
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