Mount Merapi, a volcano in Central Java considered to be one of Indonesia's most active, erupted on Friday 10 April 2020, producing an ash column that rose to about 3000 m above the volcano's 2930 m summit and prompted the
Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana to issue a warning to aviation to avoid the area. This is the second major eruption on the volcano this month, the fifth this year, and the thirteenth since the current eruptive phase began in September 2019. Despite the size of this eruption it presents little threat to Human life, as there is already a 3 km radius exclusion zone surrounding the volcano, which the local population, being familiar with the dangers presented by the volcano, are unlikely to flout.
Mount Merapi lies in a densely populated area of Java, on the borders of
Central Java and Yogyakarta Provinces, only 28 km to the north of
Yogyakarta city. It has been erupting more-or-less continuously since
1548, and has been responsible for numerous fatalities, most recently in
1994 when a pyroclastic flow (avalanche of hot gas and ash) killed 27
people, mostly in the town of Muntilan, to the west of the volcano.
Since then Merapi has undergone tow major eruptive episodes, in 2006 and
2010, without any further loss of life, largely due to prompt
evacuations by Indonesian authorities.
The Indo-Australian Plate, which underlies the Indian Ocean to the south
of Java, is being subducted beneath the Sunda Plate, a breakaway part
of the Eurasian Plate which underlies Java and neighbouring Sumatra,
along the Sunda Trench, passing under Java, where friction between the
two plates can cause Earthquakes. As the Indo-Australian Plate sinks
further into the Earth it is partially melted and some of the melted
material rises through the overlying Sunda Plate as magma, fuelling the
volcanoes of Java and Sumatra.
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