Lewotolo Developments

The activity at the volcano has been intensifying over the past two days.

At first, an impressive red-to-orange lava fountain (so-called paroxysm) shot into the night sky up to perhaps several hundred meters above the summit crater in the early night yesterday. A moderate grey ash plume reached up to 6,900 ft (2,100 m) altitude and drifted toward the southeast direction.

The intense manner continued even this morning at 08:45 local time as a relatively vigorous strombolian-to-vulcanian-sized explosion occurred from the main crater. The eruption created a grey-to-black dense ash column which rose about 750 meters above the summit and drifted northwest.

In both cases, the local volcano observatory reported seismic signals with maximum amplitudes of 18.1 and 13.1 mm and durations of 56 and 32 seconds.

The warning bulletin states that ballistic impacts of volcanic bombs and pyroclastic flows and lahars could affect an area of about 2 km distance from the main crater.

Source: Pusat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi volcano activity update 27 March 2023