Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano erupts, spewing ash into the sky

Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung erupted Wednesday afternoon, leaving a thick cloud of smoke over parts of the country’s North Sumatra province.

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The active volcano spewed ash up to 4.6 kilometres into the sky, Reuters reported.

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0:52 Bali village coated in ash, mud rushes into river as Mount Agung volcano continues to erupt

A spokesman for the country’s disaster management agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, tweeted that there were no deaths caused by the explosion.

“The rain of ash fell on villages East of the volcano,” he wrote in Indonesian. “There were no casualties because the red zone has already emptied. Thousands of FAMILIES will be relocated from Sinabung.”

A press release from Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency urged residents to stay alert and refrain from entering the three-to-seven-kilometres danger zone around the crater.

Mount Sinabung has caused the island to be on alert since September 2013, when it first erupted. Its previous explosions have been fatal, including one in May 2016, which killed at least seven people.

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Indonesia has been in the news for several active volcano watches. Bali’s Mount Agung recently caused tourism to slow on the island, as evacuations were ordered and airports shut down for several days.

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0:21 Timelapse of Bali’s Mount Agung erupting

The country has nearly 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country. Indonesia is located over the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” where the National Geographic explains 75 per cent of the world’s active volcanoes are located.

Other countries located on the so-called ring include Russia, Japan and New Zealand.

— With files from Reuters