In Indonesia, the Lewotobi volcano threw ash to a height of two kilometers; authorities raised the status of the eruption to the fourth, highest level of danger.
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The eruption followed weeks of increased volcanic activity at the mountain, located on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, and prompted the local government to order the evacuation of nearby villages. The Center for Volcanology and Geological Mitigation (PVMBG) has raised Levotobi’s danger level from level two to level four, the highest.
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“The volcanic activity of Mount Levotobi is intensifying and its status has been upgraded … to level IV. Residents of Mount Levotobi, as well as visitors and tourists, are not allowed to carry out any activities in the area within a radius of four kilometers from the center of the eruption and the sector zone five kilometers to the northwest “, the authorities said.
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During the last eruption, the volcano threw volcanic ash to a height of 2000 meters from the crater.
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Mount Levotobi was previously reported to have erupted several times in recent weeks, including an eruption on January 2 that sent volcanic ash 1.5 kilometers above the mountain’s summit. Volcanic ash from recent eruptions affected two areas near Mount Levotobi, forcing more than 2,200 residents to evacuate to temporary shelters set up by local authorities.
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Indonesia is part of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. A 40,000-kilometer-long strip of volcanoes and tectonic faults encircles the Pacific Ocean, running along the coasts of South and North America to southern Alaska, then turns to Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia and ends in the region of the island of New Guinea, New Zealand and southwestern Oceania . It is in the “Ring of Fire” that almost 90% of the approximately 1.5 thousand known volcanoes on the planet are located. 90% of all earthquakes on Earth occur there.
