The Indonesian volcano Mt. Merapi erupted Tuesday and has erupted 4 times after that, the latest being a little after midnight on 10/30 (IST.) The last time Merapi erupted was 4 years ago.
I thought it was really interesting that while we are learning about volcanoes, this volcano erupts. It just seemed to me that volcano eruptions were not very common occurrences, and if I did by chance hear about on, it was catastrophic. Now I know that volcanic eruptions are just very irregular.
Also I figured that this volcano was probably considered pretty active because it last erupted 4 years ago and now it is erupting multiple times. Upon looking into the history of it, I saw that it does erupt very often. So I thought it was really weird that some people are deciding to stay near the volcano even though they are urged to leave. The article in the Hindustan times says that some of these people are trying to protect their property. This makes me wonder what the hazard education and population is like in the Mt. Merapi area. I would have thought that the people would know, seeing as the volcano is really active, the danger and risk it poses. It should be noted, however, that it is estimated that only 36 people have died.
Another interesting factor to this volcanic eruption is the fact that a tsunami struck Indonesia at almost the same time. The volcano and the site where the tsunami hit were only a couple hours apart. The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake, and therefore the volcanic eruption may have been initiated by the quake as well. This area is also the area where the Boxing Day tsunami/earthquake took place. So far the tsunami/earthquake has only taken about 400 lives with about 300 people missing. So the area is already doing much better than it did in the Boxing Day disaster. Not only does this probably have something to do with education, community preparedness, and stronger buildings but also the magnitude of this quake was much less (7.7 as compared to 9.)
Links
Article on the latest volcanic eruption:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Indonesia-volcano-belches-hot-ash-in-new-eruption/Article1-619736.aspx
Eruption history of Merapi:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0603-25=&volpage=erupt
Articles on tsunami and volcanic eruption:
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20101030/tap-indonesia-tsunami-volcano-aeccaac.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=DTN+Asia%3A
http://www.ncnnews.org/nphweb/html/ncn/article.jsp?sid=10000006&id=10009695
Video showing dust from Merapi:
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