Mount Merapi in Indonesia, one of the most active volcanoes in the world,it erupted twice last Sunday, June 21, sending clouds of gray ash up to 6,000 meters, according to the country’s geological agency. The two eruptions lasted around seven minutes and prompted local authorities to order residents to stay outside a three-kilometer no-go zone around the crater near Indonesia’s cultural capital Yogyakarta. The agency did not raise the volcano’s alert status after the eruptions, but advised commercial aircraft to be cautious in the area. Local media reported that people in neighboring areas, including Sleman and Klaten, heard loud rumbling sounds during Monday morning.
Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands and islets, and nearly 130 active volcanoes, including the well-known Krakatoa volcano. Indonesia is an archipelago that is located near the equator of our planet and extends for a distance equivalent to one eighth of the Earth’s circumference. At the beginning of the 21st century, Indonesia was the most populous country in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous in the world. Furthermore, the Southeast Asian nation-archipelago is located in what is called the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, a vast zone of geological instability where the collision of tectonic plates causes frequent earthquakes and significant volcanic activity.
Mount Merapi, in particular, is a volcanic mountain peak located near the center of the island of Java. The volcano is located about 20 miles north of Yogyakarta and a little further south of Semarang. Merapi, which means ‘mountain of fire’, rises to 2,911 meters and has steep slopes with dense vegetation on its lower flanks.It is the most active of the 130 volcanoes that are in Indonesia.
Other major eruptions
The last major eruption of Mount Merapi took place in late 2010 : a series of incandescent gas clouds killed more than 300 people and forced the evacuation of some 280,000 residents from the surrounding areas. That was its most powerful eruption since 1930, the latter killing about 1,300 people; while another explosion in 1994 claimed some 60 lives.
One of its largest eruptions occurred in 1006 and spread ash throughout central Java. Other major eruptions were those of 1786, 1822, 1872, and 1976. Almost half of the Merapi eruptions have been accompanied by pyroclastic flows, which are clouds of superheated gases and incandescent solid particles. In the eruption of November 22, 1994, the release of a pyroclastic flow killed 64 people.
