Indonesia raises alert for volcano following a spike of activity

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have raised the alert level for the Mount Bur Ni Telong volcano in the country’s westernmost province of Aceh to its second-highest level following increased activity and volcanic earthquakes, officials said Wednesday.

The 8,600-foot stratovolcano in Aceh’s Bener Meriah regency recorded at least seven earthquakes on Tuesday evening that were felt about 3 miles away, while seismographs also detected seven shallow volcanic earthquakes along with 14 deep quakes and two tectonic quakes, said Lana Saria, the acting head of the Geological Agency at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

She said based on the results of visual and instrumental monitoring, which show the occurrence of increased volcanic activity for Mount Bur Ni Telong, scientists raised the alert level from the third to the second-highest level Tuesday evening.

“Aftershocks following local tectonic events indicate magma activity is easily triggered by tectonic disturbances,” Saria said, adding that the increase in seismic activity has been ongoing since July and became more intense and shallow in the past two months.

The agency’s visual monitoring showed the volcano clearly visible with no crater smoke. However, she warned of possible eruption, including phreatic blasts and hazardous volcanic gases near areas with fumaroles and solfataras, openings in the Earth’s crust that emit steam and gases.

Authorities urged residents and visitors to stay at least 2.4 miles from the crater and avoid fumarole and solfatara zones during cloudy or rainy weather because gas concentrations can be life-threatening.

The heightened alert came as the Bener Meriah area is still recovering from catastrophic floods and landslides earlier this month that struck 52 cities and regencies on Sumatra island, leaving 1,141 people dead with 163 residents still missing and more than 7,000 injured, the National Disaster Management Agency said. In Bener Meriah alone, 31 people died and 14 are still missing after the floods and landslides hit the regency, disrupting access to remote villages and displacing more than 2,100 residents.

Local media said people living in three villages within a 1.2-mile radius from the crater are being evacuated as officials fear that heavy rains combined with volcanic activity could worsen conditions and complicate evacuation efforts.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 280 million people, has over 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.