Indonesians woke up to a cloud of ash.

The Semeru volcano, in Indonesia, erupted on Sunday December 4, spitting out a colossal cloud of ash, which caused the inhabitants of the villages located on its side to flee, a year to the day after another eruption, which had caused dozens of dead.

Villagers living in the shadow of Mount Semeru, some 800 km from the capital Jakarta and located in the east of the island of Java, of which it is the highest point at 3,676 meters, fled by the dozens to the approaching the 1.5 km high ash cloud, taking what they could.

According to the emergency services, nearly 2,000 of them have been evacuated.

Some left in threes on motorbikes, as local authorities sounded the alarm with bamboo drums and the sky darkened like the middle of the night, monsoon rain mingling with ash, according to a reporter from the AFP on the spot.

Emergency services reported "burning avalanches", caused by blocks of lava that broke off from the summit during the eruption and surged towards the base of the volcano.

Alert level raised

No casualties were immediately reported, but authorities asked residents to stay at least five miles from the crater.

They also asked people to avoid a 13 km long area along a river southeast of Mount Semeru, towards which the volcanic ash cloud was moving.

The Center for Volcanology and Prevention of Geological Disasters (PVMBG) has raised the alert level around Mount Semeru from level three to the highest level four, its spokesperson Hendra Gunawan told Kompas TV.

"This means that danger threatens populated areas and the activity of the volcano has intensified," he explained.

Sunday evening, the PVMBG warned that the Semeru volcano was "still in the eruption phase", despite a decrease in the ash cloud.

"Activity remains very high overall," he said in a statement.

"It was raining water and ashes"

"It was dark, I couldn't see anything. It was raining water and ashes," a resident told AFP, who wished not to be identified.

"I didn't know where to find refuge. I had to flee."

According to the emergency services, a total of 1,979 people from six villages have been relocated to 11 shelters opened for the occasion.

Authorities also distributed masks to residents to protect them from air pollution from the ash.

After the eruption, the internet was cut and the mobile telephone network was faulty, according to an AFP journalist.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency has warned of a possible tsunami, caused by the eruption of the Indonesian volcano, in the islands of Miyako and Yaeyama, in the extreme south of the Japanese archipelago, according to the agency. Kyoto.

But nothing like that ultimately happened.

Exactly a year ago, on December 4, 2021, Mount Semeru had already erupted, killing at least 51 people.

Mudslides and ash engulfed villages and nearly 10,000 people had to flee their homes.

Another eruption took place two days later.

A bridge linking two districts in the region, being rebuilt after last year's eruption, was heavily damaged again on Sunday, according to the PVMBG.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes strong volcanic and seismic activity.

The Southeast Asian archipelago has about 130 active volcanoes.

With AFP

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