Indonesia's Mount Lewotobi Erupts 3 times In 1 hour

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara Province has erupted three times in the span of one hour. The volcano first erupted at 07:32 Central Indonesian Time (WITA), followed by another one 11 minutes later.

The volcano, 1,584 meters above sea level, erupted again at around 08:23 WITA, spewing ash columns 700 meters above its peak or 2,284 meters above sea level.

"The eruption was accompanied by hot clouds of avalanches with a sliding distance of approximately 2,000 meters from the crater towards the north-northeast area of Lewotobi Lak-laki," Muhammad Wafid, acting head of the Geological Agency, said on Wednesday, January 17.

Mount Lewotobi now has level IV status. Residents living around Mount Lewotobi or visitors and tourists are warned to stay out of a five-kilometer radius from the center of the eruption and around six kilometers to the north and northeast.

Wafid said that based on earthquake monitoring throughout January 16, there had been a significant increase in seismicity with 13 hot cloud avalanche earthquakes were recorded, 108 eruption earthquakes, 92 avalanche earthquakes, 172 low frequency earthquakes, 10 harmonic tremor earthquakes, and once a deep volcanic earthquake.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki is one of the peaks of Mount Lewotobi in the southeastern part of Flores Island. Mount Lewotobi is a twin volcano that has two peaks, the 'male' (Lewotobi Laki-laki) and the 'female' side (Lewotobi Perempuan).

The Geological Agency raised the status of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki to Level IV, meaning caution, after discovering the appearance of fire rays and ejections of incandescent material in the center of the peak on the evening of January 9.

TEMPO.CO

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