The Pusat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi (Center for Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation) has ordered about 2800 people to evacuate their homes in 28 villages on Lembata Island in the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia, following an eruption on Mount Lewotolo on Sunday 29 November 2020. The eruption produced an ash column about 4 km high, leading to ash falls in several areas, and leading to the closure of Wunopitu Airport. There are no reports of any casualties associated with this eruption, however the evacuations are still ongoing, and there are concerns about the whereabouts of five children from Waienga, who are believed to have fled into a forest in panic after the volcano erupted, and who have not yet been located.
Lembata sits on the northern part of the Timor Microplate; a small fragment of crust caught between the Banda Sea Plate to the north and the Australian Plate to the south. Both these other plates are subducting beneath the Timor Plate, and as they sink into the Earth, melted by the friction and the heat of the planets interior. Some of this melted material then rises through the overlying plate, fuelling the volcanoes of Flores, Timor and the neighbouring islands.
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