Storyful
A volcano in Indonesia exploded spectacularly this week, sending a tower of ash flying three miles high … leaving surrounding villages and communities surrounded in darkness.
Mount Sinabung erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Monday, sending a massive column of volcanic as thousands of feet into the air – 16,400 to be exact. Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured by the explosion, but there were warnings of lava flows.
Humans were advised to stay at least three miles from the mouth of the crater, where lava could literally cut through the landscape. And although the immediate area around the volcano has been shortened for years, people below were still covered in ash.
The AP reports up to 2 inches as if collected in some of the abandoned villages along the slopes of the volcano. People continued to drive as usual, apparently – except for the fact that they had to turn on their headlights from the car to see through the darkness.
Mount Sinabung had been asleep for centuries before erupting again in 2010 … and since then it has been explosive a handful of times in the years to follow. The 2010 eruption killed two, 16 more were killed in 2014 and 7 died in 2016.
Reports say about 300,000 as such have been driven out of the area since the volcano began to erupt.
