Indonesian volcano spews huge ash tower as exclusion zone widened

EAST FLORES: A volcano in eastern Indonesia belched a huge ash tower more than 8km into the sky today, after officials widened an exclusion zone for locals.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703m 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 1.55pm, the height reached 4,000m, but suddenly, a minute later at 1.56pm and the volcanic ash reached 8km to 10km,” 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 1km to a total of 8km around the crater yesterday.

There were no immediate reports of damage to nearby villages from today’s fresh eruption.

The mountain yesterday catapulted an ash tower, also 8km 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.

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”.