TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Lewotobi volcano spews huge ash tower, exclusion zone widened
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-metre (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, has erupted more than a dozen times this week, killing nine people after its initial burst on Monday.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Residents watch the eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki from Eputobi village in Titihena, East Nusa Tenggara, on November 8, 2024. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
A
volcano in East Nusa Tenggara belched a huge ash tower more than five miles into the sky Friday, after officials widened an exclusion zone for locals.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-metre (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, has erupted more than a dozen times this week, killing nine people after its initial burst on Monday.
"There were two eruptions: first at 1:55 pm (0555 GMT), the height reached 4,000 metres, but suddenly, a minute later at 1:56 pm and the volcanic ash reached eight to 10 kilometres," volcanology agency head Prihatin Hadi Wijaya told a press conference.
Officials at the monitoring post had to evacuate after the colossal eruption, he said, as ash and small rocks rained down while residents outside an exclusion zone watched on.
The volcanology agency extended the exclusion zone by one kilometre to a total of eight kilometres (five miles) around the crater on Thursday.
Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the eruptions were "pretty significant" due to ash rains and sand-falls that reached far into the surrounding areas.
There were no immediate reports of damage to nearby villages from Friday's fresh eruption.
The mountain on Thursday catapulted an ash tower, also five miles (eight kilometres) high, which locals said was one of the biggest they had ever seen.
Officials raised the volcano's alert level to the highest of a four-tiered system after the initial eruptions on Monday.
About 6,000 of the more than 16,000 people living in areas nearest the volcano had been evacuated to other villages, said Heronimus Lamawuran, a Flores government official.
