A volcano has erupted several times in Indonesia’s southernmost region, spewing a column of smoke more than a mile into the sky and forcing hundreds of people to be evacuated.
Mount Ruang, a stratovolcano in North Sulawesi province, first erupted at 9:45pm on Tuesday (1345 GMT) and four times throughout Wednesday, Indonesia’s volcanology agency said.
The alert level for the volcano, which has a peak of 725 metres above sea level, was raised on Wednesday evening from three to four, the highest level in the four-tiered system.
“Based on the result of visual and instrumental observation that showed an increase in volcanic activity, Mount Ruang’s level was raised from level three to level four,” Hendra Gunawan, the head of Indonesia’s volcanology agency, said in a statement.
Authorities also widened a 4km exclusion zone around the crater to 6km on Wednesday evening.
There were no reports of deaths or injuries, but more than 800 people were evacuated from two Ruang Island villages to nearby Tagulandang Island, located more than 62 miles (100km) north of the provincial capital, Manado, the state agency Antara reported.
The volcanology agency said residents of Tagulandang must be evacuated outside the 6km radius by Wednesday evening.
In a statement, Gunawan also told people to “be on alert for the potential ejection of rocks, hot cloud discharges and tsunami caused by the collapse of the volcano’s body into the sea”.
Ruang’s initial eruption on Tuesday evening pushed a column of ash 1.2 miles into the sky, with the second eruption pushing it to 1.5 miles, Muhammad Wafid, the head of the geological agency, said in a statement.
The volcanology agency said on Tuesday that volcanic activity had increased at Ruang after two earthquakes in recent weeks.
Indonesia, a vast country of archipelagos, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific’s Ring of Fire, an arc where tectonic plates collide, which stretches from Japan through south-east Asia and across the Pacific basin.