Eruption update

Sinabung was one of the first volcanoes of the week, way back in September 2010, (amazing that this format of VC has been going for so long) and has since been erupting sporadically (trying to up my clueless references). Before this the volcano had been dormant for 400 years. The volcano is in North Sumatra which is one of Indonesia's biggest islands and has been severely deforested (but that's a topic for later). In general the eruptions haven't been particularly plinian or explosive (VEI = 2) but they have been really fucking ashy. This is really shit because it means that communities have to be evacuated and relocated with crops being destroyed. Constant raining ash must just be so depressing, just seeing endless grey skies and having to protect your homes and families. There was a more violent phase to the eruption in January and February this year which killed 17 people. At the moment the eruption is continuing and the alert level has been raised this week.

See really grey ash

To me it seems that volcanic activity has been increasing lately, but whether this is true or not is in doubt. Obviously no one really knows if it is and there are loads of conflicting theories and I haven't read them, but it is actually really interesting and if I can be bothered I will research it. To summarise possible theories are it's part of climate change/ general planet in crisis shit or that its do to with globalisation/ access to information shit. Which is all very interesting.