Mount Merapi

Recently Indonesia has been shaken by natural disasters including an earthquake and tsunami, now the second large eruption of Mount Merapi in less than two weeks. It is unusual for large eruptions to occur in quick succession, as an eruption releases the pressure inside the magma chamber. It is thought that pressure was building behind a newly formed lava dome which could be seen rising between the two eruptions on 25th October and 5th November. Yesterdays eruption is Mount Merapi's largest since 1870 and there is currently a 20km safety zone around the volcano. Mount Merapi (mountain of fire in Javanese) is a 3,000m high stratovolcano, as Indonesia's most active volcano it can frequently been seen smoking. As a decade volcano Mount Merapi is well monitored and due to the numerous earthquakes in the area the Alert Level was raised to 4, the highest on the scale on the 25th October.

Sadly this has done little to prevent the damage done in Indonesia, the death toll is currently at 122 and there are thousands more injured and in emergency shelters. The eruption on the 25th October killed Mardijan, Mount Merapi's gate-keeper, his role was to calm the volcanoes angry spirits and it was in doing this that he died, on the slopes of Mount Merapi, which he considered his home. So soon after the event, it is impossible to tell the magnitude of devastation these eruptions will cause, however it is likely that amount of dead and injured will rise and unlikely that the those living around Mount Merapi live's will ever be the same again.