Expansion of hot ash cloud due to the eruption of Indonesias highest and active volcanic Mount Semera

Newsnomics  AJAY ANGELINA reporter | The Mount Semeru volcano in Indonesia at the east of Java Island

erupted on Sunday Nov 4, expelling an ash cloud of 15 kilometers into the sky, forcing the evacuation of

nearly 2,000 people as the authorities issued their highest warning for the area. The eruption at Mount

Semeru began at 2:46 a.m. (1946 GMT) on Saturday, the rescue, search and evacuation activities were

ongoing.

As reported by Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency (BNPB), about 1,979 people had been moved to 11

shelters and authorities had distributed masks to the people residing the nearby areas.

"Most roads have been closed since this morning, and now there is a raining volcanic ash that has covered

the view of the mountain," community volunteer Bayu Deny Alfianto told Reuters on telephone.

The volcano's plume of ash reached a height of 50,000 feet (15 km), said the Japanese Meteorological Agency, which had initially been on alert for the possibility that the volcano could trigger a tsunami. 

Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, PVMBG, raising the status of Mount

Semeru from ‘Alert’ to ‘Caution’ or from level 111 to level 1v, as of 12.00 WIB today. 

PVMBG chief Hendra Gunawan said a bigger volume of magma could have built up greater danger for a

bigger area as compared with previous eruptions of the volcano, in 2021 and 2020. 

They warned residents not to approach within 8 km of Semeru's eruption center. Because the expansion of

hot clouds and lava flows up to a distance of 17km from the from the eruption place and it is prone to the

danger of throwing stones (incandescent).

The eruption, some 640 km east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java,

including last month eruption that killed more than 300 people.

Mount Semeru is the highest and active volcanic mountain located in east Java Indonesia, began to erupt last year that caused killing of more than 50 people and displacing thousands.