Skip to footer

Volcanic eruptions hit western Indonesia

Volcanic eruptions from Mt. Sinabung spewed lava and gas in western Indonesia. On Tuesday alone, there were nine volcanic eruptions, although no casualties were reported.

|
Dedy Zulkifli/AP
A man watches Mount Sinabung as it spews clouds of gas during an eruption in Tiga Pancur, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014. The 2,600-meter (8,530-foot) volcano has sporadically erupted since September.
  • By Associated Press

| KARO, Indonesia

A rumbling volcano in western Indonesia that has been spewing lava and clouds of gas high into the sky let out a new, powerful burst Tuesday, prompting warnings for airplanes and triggering panic among villagers, officials said.

Nine eruptions Tuesday sent lava and searing gas tumbling out of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province, said Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. The volcano started spitting clouds of gas and lava as high as 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) in the air late Monday, but no casualties were reported.

He said more than 19,000 people have been evacuated from villages in a danger zone 5 kilometers (3 miles) around the crater to temporary shelters since authorities raised the alert status for Sinabung to the highest level in November.

Gray ash covered villages, farms and trees as far as 70 kilometers (43 miles) southeast of the mountain.

The 2,600-meter (8,530-foot) Mount Sinabung has sporadically erupted since September. An eruption in 2010 killed two people and caught scientists off guard because the volcano had been quiet for four centuries.

Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said airlines had been notified to avoid routes near the mountain.

Mount Sinabung is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Volcanic eruptions hit western Indonesia
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0101/Volcanic-eruptions-hit-western-Indonesia
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe