Indonesia’s Mount Lokon erupts again

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Indonesia’s Mount Lokon, which is located on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, erupted again on Wednesday, local authorities said. Mount Lokon began to spew volcanic ash at around 1.25 p.m. local time. Ash fell as far away as the Kinilow I village and the Tinoor areas in North Tomohon sub district, which is a short distance from Lokon’s crater.

Mount Lokon’s activity had been quickly increasing since Tuesday as more tremors were being detected, the Antara news agency reported. The monitoring post recorded 25 tremors from 1 to 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday.

Since June, Mount Lokon has shown constant volcanic activity, prompting authorities to raise its status to alert on June 27 and watch on July 10. A series of eruptions in mid July forced at least 5,269 locals from the villages of Kinilow, Kelurahan Kinilow I and Kakaskasen 1 to evacuate the area.

While most residents returned to their homes later that month, some 222 people remain at temporary refugee camps because their homes are in Mound Lokon’s red zone – 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from its crater. After July’s activity, Mount Lokon’s alert level was lowered from watchful to alert, and has remained at this level since.

 

Mount Lokon, together with Mount Empung, is a twin volcano (2.2 km/1.4 mi apart) in the northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, roughly 10 km (6 mi) south of Manado. Both rise above the Tondano plain and are among active volcanoes of Sulawesi. Mount Lokon has a flat and craterless top.

Lokon formed during a period of andesitic volcanism on ring fractures resulting from the Tondano caldera’s early to mid-Pleistocene collapse. Recently-erupted material remains andesitic in composition and consists of ash plumes and, less commonly, pyroclastic flows and lava domes.

Indonesia has 129 volcanoes including Mount Lokon. The last major eruption of Mount Lokon before in 1991, killed a Swiss hiker and forced thousands of people to flee their homes. (Wikipedia)

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