Volcano erupts near Indonesia's third-largest city
Indonesia's Tangkuban Parahu volcano, not far from the country's third-largest city of Bandung, erupted Friday, spewing ash hundreds of metres into the air and triggering local evacuations.
The volcano is located in the western part of Java, Indonesia's most populous island, and around 160 km away from the capital Jakarta.
Indonesian media and people in the area tweeted out or broadcast images of dramatic ash clouds, and people fleeing the area on ash-covered roads.
No injuries have been reported so far, and the Straits Times reports several tourists have been evacuated from craters in the area. The region has also been closed to tourists for the time being. Indonesian authorities are monitoring the status of the volcano to see if a change in alert level is needed.
Indonesia is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is one of the most volcanically active countries in the world, home to some of the most disruptive eruptions in history.
Most famously, when a volcano on the island of Krakatoa erupted in 1883, it killed at least 36,000 people and produced what has been called the loudest sound in recorded history, audible thousands of kilometres away (according to the Independent).
Earlier still, the 1816 eruption of Mount Tambora spewed so much ash into the atmosphere, it blocked enough sunlight to lower Earth's temperature, causing crop failures and winter-like weather during the summer months as far away as Europe and North America.
