Anak Krakatau erupts

Anak Krakatau erupts sending up a fifteen-kilometre column of ash

Indonesian volcano, Anak Krakatau has erupted sending a plume of ash some fifteen kilometres into the sky. The volcano is an island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

The eruption started with a loud explosion which, according to Twitter users, could be heard 150 kilometres away in Jakarta. The Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said that the first eruption lasted one minute and 12 seconds starting at 21:58, followed by a second eruption at 22:35 that lasted for 38 minutes and 4 seconds, spewing out a 500-meter-high column of ash. According to the Jakarta Post, the eruption has died down now but police and military are still on standby.

Anak Krakatau, which means Child of Krakatau, erupts frequently. I saw it myself in August 2018. A few months later in December, an eruption caused the to caldera to collapse triggering a tsunami that killed 430 people and reduced its height to 110 metres. Its parent famously blew itself out of existence in 1883 with an explosion that could be heard 4,800 kilometres away and caused a tsunami that killed 36,000 people. It was the first natural disaster to occur after the invention of international telecommunications.