Days after it killed nine people and displaced hundreds of residents, a volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted once more on Saturday, blasting a massive ash tower nine kilometres (more than five miles) into the sky.
On the tourist island of Flores, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki is a 1,703-meter (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano that has erupted more than a dozen times this week, killing nine people after it first erupted on Monday.
“The ash column was observed at approximately 9,000 metres above the summit. The ash column appeared grey with thick intensity,” the country’s volcanology agency said in a statement about the eruption that began at 04:47 local time (2047 GMT).
The new eruption on Saturday did not immediately cause any harm to neighbouring settlements.
However, the organisation cautioned locals to “remain alert to the potential for cold lava floods” because of the intense downpour.
Ash and small debris rained down from another massive eruption on Friday, forcing personnel at a nearby monitoring site to evacuate.
Locals described the eight-kilometer-tall ash tower that the mountain erupted on Thursday as one of the largest they had ever seen.
More than 10,000 people have been affected by the eruptions, with officials telling locals to permanently relocate from an eight-kilometre exclusion zone.
The head of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said authorities would temporarily house and fund locals while new homes were built.
“Since the preparation and planning process for relocation takes time, we hope we can build them quickly,” said Suharyanto, who goes by one name, on a visit to a shelter Friday.
Laki-Laki, which means “man” in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for “woman”.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.
