Indonesia Volcano Eruption Sends Ash Soaring 11 Miles High
Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki, on the southeastern Indonesian island of Flores, spewed the ash when it erupted for about six minutes on Monday morning, the national volcanic agency reported. It erupted several more times later in the day.
That's a lot of ash: The cloud was nearly four times taller than the three-mile-high one that Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki produced when it erupted last month. The ash cloud from a November eruption there that killed at least 10 people was a little over a mile high, The Associated Press reported.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the eruption on Monday, according to The A.P. The official alert level for the volcano stood at the highest tier of a four-tier scale as of late Monday afternoon.
Flores lies hundreds of miles east of both Bali, a resort island popular with international tourists, and Java, Indonesia's most populous island.
The latest ash cloud was still less than a third of the height of the one produced by a giant volcanic eruption in Tonga three years ago. In that case, a plume of water vapor, volcanic gases and ash reached an altitude of 35 miles, or four miles above the edge of the stratosphere.
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