Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupts, triggers aviation alert
03 March, 2020
Mount Merapi erupted in early stages Tuesday (Mar 3), spewing ash plumes as high as 6km above its peak, said Indonesian authorities.
The volcano is located about 30km from Yogyakarta city centre on Java island.
A code-red aviation alert - the best - was delivered to inform pilots that an eruption was under way with significant emission of ash in to the atmosphere, said the Centre for Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development (BPPTKG) in a news release.
Ashfall was reported within a 10km radius of the peak after the eruption at 5.22am; the eruption lasted for practically eight minutes.
No casualties were reported, and local village leaders told Antara news agency that residents were going about their daily activities despite the eruption.
"Residents are monitoring the problem, although they go about their day to day activities according to normal," said Klakah village head Marwoto, adding that students were likely to school and that farmers were out working the fields.
Mount Merapi last erupted on Feb 13 this year and has been on the Watch alert, the 3rd highest in a four-level volcanic monitoring system, since May 21, 2018.
"As with previous instances, today's eruption was not preceded by clear precursors," said the geological centre BPPTKG, adding that no significant land deformation was detected.
"This observational data shows the lack of sufficiently strong pressure before the eruption, suggesting that the erupted materials were dominated by volcanic gas."
It added that this eruption may continue to occur as outflow from the magma chamber persists.
An eruption is predicted to launch volcanic materials as far 3km predicated on data collected from a drone on Nov 19 this past year.
As such, residents are advised never to be within a 3km radius of the volcano.
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