With over 13,000 islands, Indonesia is best known for its luxurious Bali tourist resorts. However the country is also home to the highest concentration of active volcanoes in the world. Indonesia has suffered from every kind of volcanic disaster, from mudflow to pyroclastic flow, from earthquake to tsunami. In fact it was the devastating wave that hit Sumatra in 2004 that turned the word “tsunami” into one commonly used outside of scientific spheres. Despite this sad fame, Indonesia continues to attract a steady flow of tourists from all around the world; A flow that is only rarely interrupted by events such as those of this January.
Mount Bromo, a volcano situated in east Java, came to life Thursday January the 27th disgorging massive clouds of ash. The volcano had been “rumbling” since November but the alert level that had been set to red, had been lowered in the month preceding the eruption. None of the inhabitants were injured, but the volcano may have caused some damage to those livelihoods related to tourism or air-travel, due to the large quantity of ash produced by the volcano more than 30 international flights were cancelled in the three days following the eruption.
By Clara Lang-Ezekiel, added February 22nd 2011
More information at:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/region.cfm?rnum=06&rpage=highlights
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110130-261171.html
Volcanic Activity Blog 