Volcano erupts in Indonesia forcing residents to flee
A volcano in Indonesia has erupted forcing residents to evacuate and a major airport to close.
Authorities ordered residents living near Mount Merapi to leave their homes on Friday, while the city of Yogyakarta closed its airport after the 5500-metre peak sent a column of steam and ash into the sky.
The volcano situated in the borders of Klaten, Magelang and Boyolali districts erupted at 7.30am, with volcanic ash raining down in Tugu Kaliurang.
The Mount Merapi volcano on densely populated Java island is one of the most active in Indonesia and a series of eruptions in 2010 killed more than 350 people.
A disaster mitigation agency told residents living within a 5km radius of the mountain to move to shelters, agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.
He said that 120 people who had been hiking up Merapi were safe.
The airport in Yogyakarta, the nearest big city to the volcano, shut because of the threat from the ash, the state-owned aviation agency AirNav said in a statement.
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The disaster agency described Merapi’s latest eruption as phreatic, which means magma heats up ground water and vapour is released under pressure.
The alert status on Merapi had not be raised, it said.
