A volcano has erupted on the Indonesian island of Ruang. The mountain threatens to fall into the sea and cause a tsunami.
Ruang – On Tuesday (April 16th) Yuanita Bawoleh was swimming in the sea with friends and family. The night after the day at the beach, all hell broke loose over the archipelago of the Indonesian Sangihe Archipelago, north of the large Indonesian island of Sulawesi, not far from the Philippines.
Bawoleh lives in the village of Boto on the island of Thulandang, which is only one and a half kilometers away from the island volcano Ruang. At 1:08 a.m. local time, Ruang literally exploded, followed by a second violent eruption. Bawoleh, who works at the local evangelical church and has a son, took out her cell phone and filmed the natural ice event.
Volcanic eruption in Indonesia: Hell breaks out on the people in the middle of the night
You can see the embers erupting from the mountain. “I don't know about tomorrow, maybe the sky will be dark.
But the Merciful still protects me,” writes Bawoleh. “Even if the mountains and hills shake, the love and faithfulness of God will protect you, remain steadfast,” continued the deeply religious Christian.
The eruption continues in the morning, with the ash cloud rising three kilometers high and darkening the sky over Boto. Bawoleh films how the volcano on the neighboring island shoots the eruption column into the sky, there is lightning - a volcanic thunderstorm caused by the friction of the ash particles in the cloud. Bawoleh posts the natural spectacle and quotes the Bible: “The distant sky is blue – your creation. The earth and the sea are like rubble and dust, but you love.” A few hours later, a rainbow stretches over her village. “Hallelujah God is good,” one user posted under the reel that Bawoleh shared.
Mother posts video in the hail of rocks: “The Ruang looks scary” – 150 earthquakes
In the evening it becomes threatening again and Bawoleh posts: “The Ruang looks frightening with its activity: loud thunder and lightning strikes, a column of smoke and clouds of ash. But honestly, the magical light looks beautiful.” But the volcano also endangers her village: “Volcanic boulders thrown away by the eruption cover the road from Kampung to Boto,” she writes. The woman trusts in God and recommends the same to others: “Friends, acquaintances, buddies, acquaintances, wherever you are – our protection is prayer.”
Other locals are also filming and photographing the dangerous natural spectacle, which was announced at very short notice: According to
vulkane.net,
several earthquakes were registered on Saturday. Two days later, earthquake activity increased dramatically. There were over 150 tremors. After 24 hours, there was another significant increase in seismicity, with another 374 volcanic earthquakes recorded. Authorities then changed the alert level from green to yellow to orange to red in just one day.
Indonesia volcano could fall into sea and trigger tsunami - villages on volcanic islands evacuated
The two villages on the island volcano with their 838 residents, Laingpatihe and Pumpente, were hastily evacuated. On Thursday, Indonesian civil protection officials worried that the 725-meter-high Ruang volcano could collapse and huge masses of rock could fall into the sea. The result would be a tsunami. In 1871, an eruption of Ruang triggered a monster wave up to 25 meters high. Around 400 people died on the neighboring island of Tagulandang. The disaster management agency PVMBG published a warning on Facebook.
The west and southwest of Tagulandang were therefore also evacuated. People have already been injured there by falling ash and stones, reports disaster control spokesman Abdul Muhari.
Indonesia lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. On both sides of the ocean, the Pacific crust submerges beneath the continental crusts of Eurasia and America. The Pacific plate melts deep down, the magma rises and this is how the volcanoes arise on the west coasts of America and in the Asian island world. Just in December, a violent volcanic eruption at Marapi in Indonesia surprised and killed hikers. The infamous Krakatoa also caused a spectacular eruption. There is also great concern in Italy about a possible imminent eruption of the Phlegraean Fields supervolcano.