Authorities have been put on high alert when Indonesia’s Mount Soputan, located on the northern part of Sulawesi island, erupted twice on December 16. Indonesia’s national disaster agency’s spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho warned locals to stay away as ash and lava is still sliding down the sloped of the volcano. Residents of the island have also been advised to wear masks in case of toxic fumes and ash rain.
Authorities have kept the volcano’s alert level at the second highest possible.
Soputan is one of the island’s most active volcanoes and the Smithsonian Institution has identified it is a complex volcano, with free-flowing, stream-like basaltic lava, but it can also produce explosive eruptions.
Indonesia sit along the Ring of Fire region, an area where most of the world’s volcanic eruptions occur.
The Ring of Fire has seen a large amount of activity in recent days, but Indonesia has been hit hard due to its position on a large grid of tectonic plates.
Indonesia is at the meeting point of three major continental plates – the Pacific, the Eurasian and the Indo-Australian plates – and the much smaller Philippine plate.
As a result, several volcanoes on the Indonesian islands are prone to erupting, with Bali’s Mt Agung taking the headlines last year and in 2018.
Indonesia is home to roughly 400 volcanoes, out of which 127 are currently active, accounting for about a third of the world’s active volcanoes.
Modern history’s most destructive eruptions both came from Indonesia, at Tambora in 1815 and the second-biggest, Krakatoa in 1883.
Mount Agung had previously erupted in 1963, the most explosive volcanic event of the 20th century.
Most volcanoes in Indonesia belong to the Sunda Volcanic Arc, a stretch of 3,000km from north-west Sumatra to the Banda sea.