Volcano Sinabung erupted in Indonesia, throwing into the sky a powerful column of smoke and ash up to 2,800 meters high.
The volcano in North Sumatra province began emitting ash and volcanic material at 9 a.m., and the eruption lasted nearly six minutes, the local geological agency reported.
Images showed a thick column of ash erupting from the interior of Sinabunga in an easterly direction.
There were no evacuation orders and no reports of flight disruptions.
Authorities instructed residents to avoid a five-kilometer radius around the crater, an area that has remained uninhabited for years due to increased volcanic activity.
“Residents and tourists should not engage in any activities around Mount Sinabung or resettled villages because volcanic activity remains high,” said Muhammad Nurul Asrori, an official at the Mount Sinabung monitoring post, adding that the volcano’s alert status remains unchanged at level three.
Sinabung, a 2,460-meter-high volcano, had been dormant for centuries before coming to life in 2010 when an eruption killed two people.
After another period of inactivity, it began erupting again in 2013 and has remained very active ever since.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and islets, has about 130 active volcanoes.
It is located in the Ring of Fire, a belt of plate tectonic boundaries skirting the Pacific Ocean, where seismic eruptions frequently occur.
