New eruption at Indonesia’s Soputan

Quick note for this evening – Twitter follower @ikmar made me aware of an eruption at Soputan in Indonesia. The little news I’ve found about the eruption (Indonesian) have been in Indonesian, but they suggest a moderate explosive eruption producing a 6 km ash plume with ash fall to the west. Now, gleaning information from the Google Translation of some of these article can be, well, challenging. For example, the eruption is described by Surono of the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) as the following (according to Google Translate):

“The movement of Mount Soputan is constantly increasing the incidence of vomit marked with fluorescent materials such as fireworks or commonly known strombolian on Sunday morning, at around 0:24 pm.”

Clear as day, eh? The only other information (Indonesian) I can gather is that the area around Soputan was placed under a higher alert status. No word on evacuations or casualties from the eruption on Sulawesi, but it appears that the eruption caused few problems to the surrounding region. The volcano last erupted in 2008 in spectacular fashion and tends to produce explosive VEI 2-3 eruptions along with some larger lava flow events and fire fountains (see top left).

UPDATE: Here is an article in English covering the eruption – it does mention a 6-km evacuation zone around the volcano. {thanks to James Reynolds for the link.}

Top left: Image of the 2008 eruption of Soputan.