Flights Cancelled After Indonesia’s Mount Ruang Erupts

Thousands of people have been evacuated, and flights have been interrupted, as Indonesia’s Mount Ruang erupted again, spewing thick clouds of ash over 5 kilometers (3 miles) into the sky.

Officials said the volcano in the archipelago’s North Sulawesi province erupted at least three times on Tuesday, raising concerns that debris could fall into the sea and trigger a tsunami.

Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) uploaded footage of lightning strikes flashing above Ruang’s crater, while flaming red clouds of lava and boulders were blasted into the air.

The agency stated that all 843 residents of Ruang Island, where the volcano is located, had been relocated to Manado, the provincial capital some 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. Around 12,000 inhabitants from neighboring Tagulandang Island are being evacuated to Siau Island further north, with two ships assisting.

Rosalin Salindeho, a 95-year-old Tagulandang native, expressed her concerns when Ruang erupted after arriving in Siau. “The mountain has exploded. Wow, it was bad. There was a downpour of rocks. Twice. “The second one was so powerful that it hit houses far away,” she claimed.

Mount Ruang Ash Hits Borneo

On Wednesday morning, Indonesia’s meteorological service (BMKG) posted a map showing volcanic ash had reached Borneo, the island shared by Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia.

According to Indonesian air traffic control organization AirNav Indonesia, seven airports, including those in Manado and Gorontalo, have had to close.

Malaysia Airlines said that the ash caused the cancellation of certain flights to and from airports in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, with travel dependant on weather conditions. North Sulawesi is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago.

On Wednesday morning, Julius Ramopolii, head of the Mount Ruang monitoring post, reported that the volcano was still spewing ash and smoke above the crater.

“The volcano is visibly seen, the plume of smoke is visible, grey and thick, and reached 500-700 metres (2,300 feet) above the crater,” he said in a press release.

He said the warning level remained at the top of a four-tiered system and urged residents to stay outside the authorities’ seven-kilometer exclusion zone.

Indonesia has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as a result of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where various tectonic plates collide. Mount Ruang erupted several times earlier in April, causing evacuations and airline disruptions due to tsunami worries.

Mount Anak Krakatoa’s crater, located between the Java and Sumatra islands, partially collapsed in 2018 after a big eruption, sending massive parts of the volcano into the ocean and causing a tsunami that killed over 400 people and injured thousands more.

Source: Aljazeera