A volcano located on Indonesia’s eastern island of Halmahera, Mount Ibu, erupted on Wednesday morning, spewing a 4km (2.5-mile) high ash cloud that forced authorities to raise the alert level in surrounding areas to the highest, according to official report.
Mount Ibu erupted at 07:11 a.m. (22:11 GMT Tuesday) for around two minutes, the country’s volcanology agency revealed in a statement.
“Clouds of thick grey ash billowed into the sky, leaning towards the west,” according to Muhammad Wahid, the agency’s head.
“Residents and tourists should not have any activities within at least 5 km (3 miles) from the crater,” he further added.
Mount Ibu also erupted on Tuesday afternoon, spewing three-km (1.86-mile) high volcanic ash.
The spokesperson of Indonesia’s disaster agency, Abdul Muhari said that there were around 13,000 residents living near the volcano, but as at the time of filing this report, there is no plan to evacuate the residents so far.
“Today’s eruption has not yet affected the residents directly. But we have deployed personnel just in case evacuation is needed,” he told Reuters.
Mount Ibu’s activities follow a series of eruptions of different volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and has 127 active volcanoes.
Mount Ibu had a series of eruptions last year. In May last year, it forced the evacuation of people living in seven nearby villages.
