Indonesia: Ruang volcano erupts again
Steph Deschamps / April 20, 2024
A remote volcano in northern Indonesia erupted once again on Friday, an AFP journalist observed, a few days after eruptions that forced the evacuation of several thousand residents from an island near the crater.
The archipelago's volcanology agency confirmed that the eruption had occurred at 5:06 pm and sent a plume of smoke 400 meters high.
Although the authorities declared that Ruang had begun to calm down on Friday, they had maintained the highest alert level (4 out of 4), synonymous with high volcanic activity.
A six-kilometer exclusion zone has been set up around the volcano. Tsunamis are still possible in the event of the volcano's rocks collapsing into the sea.
In 2018, a violent eruption of Anak Krakatoa, located between the main islands of Java and Sumatra, caused entire sections of the crater to collapse into the ocean, triggering a tsunami responsible for over 400 deaths and thousands of injuries.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a zone of significant volcanic activity.