A volcano erupted in western Indonesia this Sunday, December 3, releasing a column of ash three kilometers high, and at the end of the day about forty hikers were still being searched in the area, according to an official source.
Ash rising from Mount Marapi, which is still erupting, has been seen up to 3,000 meters above its summit, said Hendra Gunawan, director of Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazards.
The eruption, on the island of Sumatra, began at 2:54 p.m. (07:54 GMT), and so far has caused no victims or damage.
42 people wanted
“We can observe this very intense column of ash, dark gray in color, leaning towards the east,” Gunawan said in a press release, adding that “neither the people who live around the volcano nor tourists have the right to enter its interior.” “. a radius of three kilometers around the crater.
But a total of 70 people were recorded entering the area on Saturday and Sunday morning, and 42 of them remained unaccounted for at the end of the day.
“Our teams are evacuating everyone. We have found and evacuated 28 people and are still searching for the others. We hope everyone is unharmed,” said West Sumatra Natural Resources Protection Agency head Dian Indriati.
Some hikers, however, do not report entering or leaving the area, so the number of people still there is uncertain.
Almost 130 active volcanoes
Marapi, 2,891 meters high and whose name means “the mountain of fire”, is the most active volcano in Sumatra. According to authorities, it is currently at the third alert level, on a scale of four.
“The ash rain has now reached the city of Bukittinggi,” the third city in Sumatra, with more than 100,000 inhabitants, announced Ahmad Rifandi, director of the Mount Marapi monitoring station, adding that the inhabitants of the city that they have to go out into the streets with “hats, glasses and masks.”
Indonesia is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes significant volcanic and seismic activity. The country has about 130 active volcanoes. In May, the country’s most active volcano, Merapi, on the island of Java, spewed lava more than two kilometers from its crater.
Source: BFM TV
