(Jakarta) The threat of an Indonesian volcano that has erupted more than half a dozen times this week has not been ruled out, the head of the archipelago’s volcanology agency told AFP , while the crater spewed ash again on Saturday.
Mount Ruang, in remote North Sulawesi, had already erupted on Tuesday evening, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of residents from the nearest islands.
The volcano erupted again before midnight Friday and again Saturday afternoon, expelling a column of ash 250 meters above its summit, said the volcanology agency, which warned of possible new major eruptions.
“With the recorded volcanic earthquakes, the crisis is not yet over,” the agency’s director, Hendra Gunawan, told AFP. “This indicates that magmatic fluids continue to move from depths to the surface. So it is not surprising that eruptions still occur,” he added.
Authorities have maintained a six-kilometer exclusion zone around the volcano, which rises to 725 meters above sea level.
More than 6,000 residents of the neighboring island of Tagulandang, where around 20,000 people live, have been evacuated outside the exclusion zone, a local official said on Friday.
Residents were advised to wear masks to avoid respiratory problems, the agency said in a statement.
The volcano’s latest activity also prompted authorities to extend the closure of Sam Ratulangi International Airport in the regional capital of Manado, more than 100 kilometers away.
The airport, which was initially scheduled to reopen on Saturday, will remain closed until Sunday because volcanic ash from Mount Ruang was detected, Ambar Suryoko, director of the Manado region airport authority, said in a statement.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an area of significant volcanic activity.