Indonesia’s Uneasy Mount Merapi Starts Acting Up: By Paige Kutschall

"JAKARTA, Indonesia–One of Indonesia’s most volatile volcanoes is acting up on the heavily populated island of Java.

Scientists raised the alert status of Mount Merapi to level II on a 4-point scale late Tuesday night amid an uptick in small quakes and avalanches. The highly active volcano looms over Yogyakarta, a cultural hub and university town in central Java. Since April 20, the mountain has experienced 29 avalanches and dozens of low-frequency quakes that show “an increase in the fluid contained in the volcanic gas,” which indicates an increased likelihood of eruption,  Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the country’s national disaster agency, said Wednesday. The mountain is still considered safe under the current alert level, and no one has been ordered to evacuate. Climbing the mountain – typically a popular tourist activity – has been prohibited. Indonesia has around 130 active volcanoes, the majority of which are currently considered stable. Four volcanoes are on a high-level III alert, including Mount Sinabung on Sumatra Island, which erupted for months on end beginning late last year, killing 15 people and forcing more than 20,000 to evacuate their homes. Activity at Sinabung has abated enough that earlier this month scientists took it off alert level IV, the highest. No volcanoes are currently on the highest alert. Merapi, about 25 kilometers north of Yogyakarta, is Indonesia’s most seismically active volcano. Its eruption in 2010 released poisonous gases and blanketed the region, populated by millions of people, in a layer of fine ash. More than 300 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. The United Nations cites Merapi as one of 16 volcanoes worldwide that pose especially serious threats because of their activity and vicinity to major population centers. Indonesia sits on the fault lines of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which sees frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. The archipelago is home to some of the world’s most famous volcanic eruptions, including the Mount Toba super-eruption around 74,000 years ago in North Sumatra that created what is today the world’s largest volcanic lake, and the eruption of Mount Krakatau, which lies west of Java, in 1883."

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2014/04/30/indonesias-uneasy-mount-merapi-starts-acting-up/?mod=WSJ_SEA_Blog&mod=WSJ_SEA_Blog