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Eruptions from a remote Indonesian volcano forced more than half a dozen airports to close with ash spreading as far as Malaysia, officials said, as authorities rushed to evacuate thousands due to tsunami fears.
Mount Ruang erupted three times on Tuesday, spewing lava and ash more than 5 kilometers (three miles) into the sky and forcing authorities to issue evacuation orders to 12,000 people.
A rescue ship and warship were dispatched to help move thousands from the neighboring island of Tagulandang north to Siau Island amid warnings of parts of the volcano falling into the sea. potentially causing tsunamis.
Rosalin Salindejo, a 95-year-old resident of Tagulandang in Indonesia’s most remote region of North Sulawesi province, spoke of her fears when Ruang erupted after arriving in Siau.
“The mountain erupted. Wow, that was terrible. There were showers of stones. Twice. The second one was really heavy, even the houses further away were also hit,” she said.
The country’s meteorological agency, BMKG, shared a map on Wednesday morning showing that volcanic ash had reached as far east Malaysia on the island of Borneo, which Malaysia shares with Indonesia and Brunei.
The spread of volcanic ash forced seven airports to close, the largest in the provincial capital Manado and the city of Gorontalo, according to a notice from state air traffic control provider AirNav Indonesia.
The crater of Mount Anak Krakatau, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, also partially collapsed in 2018 when a major eruption sent huge chunks of the volcano into the ocean, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 400 people and injured thousands.
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