Several Australian airlines have canceled flights to and from the popular Indonesian vacation island of Bali after an erupting volcano gushed a column of hot ash miles into the sky.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki, on the remote island of Flores, has been active since a series of eruptions last Monday killed at least 10 people, covering towns and villages in volcanic ash and forcing tens and thousands of residents to flee.
Jetstar, Qantas, and Virgin Australia grounded flights between Australia and Bali overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning, as the volcanic ash cloud posed a safety threat.
“Due to volcanic ash caused by the Mount Lewotobi eruption in Indonesia, it’s currently not safe to operate flights to and from Bali,” Qantas said in a statement posted to its website Wednesday, adding it would monitor the situation closely.
Jetstar said in a Wednesday statement that all flights to and from Bali’s Denpasar Airport have been canceled until at least 2 p.m. local time Wednesday.
Depending on the ash cloud conditions, Jetstar said it planned to add two more return services between Australia and Bali Wednesday afternoon.
Virgin Australia has also canceled all flights between the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and Bali’s Denpasar, according to its website.
Activity at the Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano, in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, has increased since its initial eruption, prompting authorities to expand the danger zone.
On Friday, the volcano spewed a 6.2-mile column of hot ash into the sky – its largest so far, officials said, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Hadi Wijaya, the head of Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said volcanic materials, including smoldering rocks, lava, and hot, thumb-size fragments of gravel and ash, were thrown 5 miles from the crater Friday, AP reported.
Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of 270 million people, has over 120 active volcanoes – more than anywhere else in the world. It sits along the Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile arc of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.
In 2018, the eruption of Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau caused it to topple into the sea, triggering a tsunami that struck the coasts of the main Java and Sumatra islands, killing more than 400 people.